The document discusses continuous delivery and deployment processes. It describes the benefits of continuous delivery such as being able to deploy features and fixes as soon as they are ready with zero downtime. Case studies of Etsy, gov.uk and FutureLearn are provided as examples, all of which deploy code multiple times daily through automated testing, fast deployments, constant monitoring and continual bug fixing. The key to continuous delivery is reducing risk by making small changes often and monitoring feedback.

1. Reducing risk with continuous
delivery
BY JOEL CHIPPINDALE - NOVEMBER 2014

2. A story about FutureLearn

3. How many of you work in continuous
delivery environments?

4. How do you explain the benefits?

5. What is continuous delivery?

6. What is continuous deployment?

7. What is deployment?

8. All the work required to make a
new feature available to users

9. Release based deployment

10. Process

11. Benefits
• QA have time to check each release
before it goes live
• Marketing can announce releases
• Defined process sounds reliable

12. But what happens when
something goes wrong?

13. • Bugs found in QA can delay ALL features.
• Features may miss the ‘release window’
• How are bugs fixed that are found AFTER QA?
• Scheduled downtime?

14. Big releases are complicated
releases

15. The more complicated the release the greater
the chance that something will go wrong

16. Continuous deployment

17. Process

18. • Bugs found in QA can delay ALL features.
• Features may miss the ‘release window’
• How are bugs fixed that are found AFTER QA?
• Scheduled downtime?

19. Benefits
• Features and bug fixes available as soon
as they are ready
• Most deployments can be made with
zero downtime

20. Continuous deployment
vs.
Continuous delivery

21. Case study 1: Etsy

23. More than 1 billion dollars worth
of sales made on Etsy in 2012
Source: Contniuous deployment at Etsy

24. How often do Etsy deploy code?

25. 25+ times per day

26. Who can deploy code at Etsy?

27. EVERYONE

28. Automated tests

29. Fast and easy deployments

30. Constant monitoring

31. Continual bug fixing

32. …and gradual role out of
features

33. Case study 2: gov.uk

35. 50 million visits a month
Source: GDS blog

36. Several deployments a day,
thousands since launch

37. Automated tests

38. Fast and easy deployments

39. Constant monitoring

40. …and smoke tests

41. Case study 3: FutureLearn

43. 700,000 learners

44. Average of 3 deployments every
working day

45. Automated tests

46. Fast and easy deployments

47. Constant monitoring

48. Continual QA and bug fixing

49. …beyond Etsy, gov.uk and
FutureLearn

50. Amazon

51. Google

52. Facebook

53. Continuous delivery works well
with

54. Automated tests

55. Fast and easy deployments

56. Constant monitoring

57. Continual bug fixing

58. These are good practices for
EVERY project

59. Continuous delivery:
Reduce risk by delivering small
changes often and monitoring
feedback

60. Questions?
@joelchippindale
joel.chippindale@futurelearn.com
about.futurelearn.com/blog/