Source URL: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/new-cloud-deploy-features-for-automated-deployments/
Source: Cloud Blog
Title: Safer automated deployments with new Cloud Deploy features
Feedly Summary: Cloud Deploy is a fully managed continuous delivery platform that automates the delivery of your application. On top of existing automation features, customers tell us they want other ways to automate their deployments to keep their production environments reliable and up to date.
We’re happy to announce three new features to help with that, all in preview.
1. Repair rollouts
The new repair rollout automation rule lets you retry failed deployments or automatically roll back to a previously successful release when an error occurs. These errors could come in any phase of a deployment: a pre-deployment SQL migration, a misconfiguration detected when talking to a GKE cluster, or as part of a deployment verification step. In any of these cases, the repair rollout automation lets you retry the failed step a configurable number of times, perfect for those occasionally flaky end-to-end tests. If the retry succeeds, the rollout continues. If the retries fail (or none are configured) the repair rollout automation can also roll back to the previously successful release.
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2. Deploy policies
Automating deployments is powerful, but it can also be important to put some constraints on the automation. The new deploy policies feature is intended to limit what these automations (or users) can do. Initially, we’re launching a time-windows policy which can, for example, inhibit deployments during evenings, weekends, or during important events. While an on-caller with the Policy Overrider role could “break glass" to get around these policies, automated deployments won’t be able to trigger a rollout in the middle of your big demo.
3. Timed promotions
After a release is successfully rolled out, you may want to automatically deploy it to the next environment. Our previous auto-promote feature let you promote a release after a specified duration, for example moving it into prod 12 hours after it went to staging. But often you want promotions to happen on a schedule, not based on a delay. Within Google, for example, we typically recommend that teams promote from a dev environment into staging every Thursday, and then start a promotion into prod on Monday mornings. With the new timed promotion automation, Cloud Deploy can handle these scheduled promotions for you.
4. The future
Comprehensive, easy-to-use, and cost-effective DevOps tools are key to efficient software delivery, and it’s our hope that Cloud Deploy will help you implement complete CI/CD pipelines. Stay tuned as we introduce exciting new capabilities and features to Cloud Deploy in the months to come.
Update your current pipelines with these new features today. Check out the product page, documentation, quickstarts, and tutorials. Finally, if you have feedback on Cloud Deploy, you can join the conversation. We look forward to hearing from you!
AI Summary and Description: Yes
Summary: The text discusses new features within Google Cloud’s continuous delivery platform, Cloud Deploy. The focus is on enhancing deployment automation while addressing reliability and governance concerns through features such as repair rollouts, deploy policies, and timed promotions. These improvements are significant for DevOps practices, particularly in the context of maintaining secure and reliable production environments.
Detailed Description: The announcement regarding Cloud Deploy introduces several key features that streamline and enhance the deployment process for applications, crucial for organizations adopting DevSecOps methodologies.
– **Repair Rollouts**
– This feature automates retry mechanisms for failed deployments, which can occur at any stage of a deployment.
– It allows configuration of retry attempts for specific deployment steps, enhancing reliability.
– If all retries fail, a rollback to the last successful release is triggered, ensuring production stability.
– **Deploy Policies**
– Introduces constraints on what automated deployments can do, helping maintain control and governance.
– The initial feature restricts deployment actions during specific times (e.g., evenings, weekends).
– A role, Policy Overrider, allows exceptions for urgent needs, balancing automation with human discretion.
– **Timed Promotions**
– Enhances the scheduling of promotions between environments (e.g., development to staging).
– Automates the promotion process based on a set schedule rather than relying on time delays, which can increase workflow efficiency.
– Reflects internal practices at Google, suggesting a way to standardize operations across teams.
– **Future Outlook**
– Emphasizes the importance of comprehensive DevOps tools in software delivery.
– Signals future enhancements and involvement from the community to improve Cloud Deploy.
These features not only aim to simplify the automation of deployment processes but also address critical governance, reliability, and compliance aspects necessary for maintaining secure application lifecycles in cloud deployments. Ultimately, these developments would support organizations in implementing robust CI/CD pipelines while navigating security challenges inherent in modern software delivery.