What is A/B testing deployment?
This type of deployment consists of parallel deployments of a newer version of software and the older version of the software with an intent to take important business decisions or o to benchmark the new feature performance or to keep specific version for specific types of requests. Like segregation of web and mobile requests. The tester/user selection process is very similar to canary testing deployment. The selection may be according to a geolocation, UI Language, Operating system etc.
If you have ever used Atlassian’s products, they have been doing this since quite some time. Few users are given an option to interact with the new user interface before making the complete migration.
Why use A/B deployment testing deployment?
- It helps to measure the effectiveness of the new feature.
- It also helps in yeilding important real time statistical data
- It helps in management of separate deployments over mobile and web. (Have you seen pages like facebook.com have a mobile version starting with m.facebook.com)
When to use A/B Testing deployment?
- Whenever you need to benchmark new features with live traffic
When to avoid A/B testing deployment?
- Whenever you need a simple deployment
How to A/B testing deployment?
It is done via the canary approach.
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