Two Release Strategies
A mesh makes progressive delivery easy because it controls the traffic split. The two classic patterns are canary and blue green.
Canary Release
A canary sends a small slice of traffic to the new version while most users stay on the stable one.
- Start at one percent, watch error rates and latency.
- Increase the weight in steps if metrics stay healthy.
- Roll back instantly by setting the new weight to zero.
Because the mesh already collects metrics per subset, you can automate the decision to promote or abort.
Blue Green
Blue green keeps two full environments. Blue serves all traffic while green runs the new version idle. You flip the route to green in one move, and flip back just as fast if something breaks.
Choosing Between Them
Canary limits blast radius gradually and catches problems with real users at low volume. Blue green gives instant cutover and rollback but doubles resource cost during the overlap. The mesh supports both with the same weighted routing primitive.
Key idea
Canary shifts traffic to a new version in small weighted steps while blue green flips between two full environments, and the mesh drives both with weighted routing and per subset metrics.