Multi-stage delivery workflow

The definition of a multi-stage delivery workflow manifests in a so-called shipyard. It can hold multiple stages with dedicated and opinionated delivery tasks to execute. Following this declarative approach, there is no need to write imperative pipeline code. Keptn takes the shipyard file and creates a multi-stage delivery workflow.

Declare Shipyard (before creating a project)

The shipyard.yml file defines the stages each deployment has to go through until it is released in production. A shipyard file can consist of any number of stages with at least the name property. Besides, each stage can consist of workflow tasks (strategies) from the following list:

approval_strategy
deployment_strategy
test_strategy
remediation_strategy

A shipyard is defined at the level of a project. This means that all services in a project share the same shipyard configuration.

Name

The name of the stage. This name will be used for the branch in the Git repository and Kubernetes namespace to which services at this stage will be deployed to.

Example of a shipyard with three stages:

stages:
  - name: "dev"
  - name: "hardening"
  - name: "production"

Approval Strategy

The approval strategy specifies the kind of approval, which is required before deploying an artifact into the next stage. The approval strategy can be defined based on the evaluation result pass and warning. Keptn supports the following approval strategies for the evaluation results pass and warning:

automatic: The artifact is deployed automatically.
manual: The user is asked for approval before triggering the deployment.

This allows combinations as follows:

	Evaluation result: pass	Evaluation result: warning	Behavior
Skip approval task:	pass:automatic	warning:automatic	Regardless of the evaluation result, the approval task is skipped
Depending on evaluation result:	pass:automatic	warning:manual	If the evaluation result is a warning, an approval is required
Depending on evaluation result:	pass:manual	warning:automatic	If the evaluation result is a pass, an approval is required
Mandatory approval task:	pass:manual	warning:manual	Regardless of the evaluation result, an approval is required

Per default, an automatic approval strategy is used for evaluation result pass and warning.

Extended shipyard with a mandatory approval task in production:

stages:
  - name: "dev"
  - name: "hardening"
  - name: "production"
    approval_strategy: 
      pass: "manual"
      warning: "manual"

Deployment Strategy

Defines the deployment strategy used to deploy a new version of a service. Keptn supports deployment strategies of type:

direct: Deploys a new version of a service by replacing the old version of the service.
blue_green_service: Deploys a new version of a service next to the old one. After a successful validation of this new version, it replaces the old one and is marked as stable (i.e., it becomes the primary-version).

Extended shipyard with direct deployment in dev and blue/green deployment in hardening and production:

stages:
  - name: "dev"
    deployment_strategy: "direct"
  - name: "hardening"
    deployment_strategy: "blue_green_service"
  - name: "production"
    approval_strategy: 
      pass: "manual"
      warning: "manual"
    deployment_strategy: "blue_green_service"

Test Strategy

Defines the test strategy used to validate a deployment. Failed tests result in an automatic roll-back of the latest deployment in case of a blue/green deployment strategy. Keptn supports tests of type:

functional
performance

Extended shipyard with functional tests in dev and performance tests in hardening

stages:
  - name: "dev"
    deployment_strategy: "direct"
    test_strategy: "functional"
  - name: "hardening"
    deployment_strategy: "blue_green_service"
    test_strategy: "performance"
  - name: "production"
    approval_strategy: 
      pass: "manual"
      warning: "manual"
    deployment_strategy: "blue_green_service"

Remediation Strategy

The remediation strategy specifies whether remediation actions are enabled or not. To enable remediation actions, the remediation_strategy property has to be set to automated.

Extended shipyard with remediation actions enabled in production

stages:
  - name: "dev"
    deployment_strategy: "direct"
    test_strategy: "functional"
  - name: "hardening"
    deployment_strategy: "blue_green_service"
    test_strategy: "performance"
  - name: "production"
    approval_strategy: 
      pass: "manual"
      warning: "manual"
    deployment_strategy: "blue_green_service"
    remediation_strategy: "automated"

Create project with multi-stage delivery workflow

After declaring the delivery workflow for a project in a shipyard, you are ready to create a Keptn project as explained in create a project.