[vacri]

Why not just roll back while you're testing the fix? No need to be suffering unnecessary downtime while you hunt, fix, test, package, stage, and deploy the hotfix. Rolling back takes you to a version that has already passed all stages.

[brudgers]

John Wilkes of Google talks about this problem with Jeff Meyerson [1] and how it relates to the choice to use or not use containers. The spoiler is that container management tooling allows separation of infrastructure builds from deployment: a configuration problem when building a container happens on the build server instead of while a script is running on machine in production. His argument is that when a container deployment to production fails, the state of the machine is readily known (new bad container) versus an more complex state when a scripted build fails part way to completion.

And a container management tool can facilitate handling a failed distribution automatically via rollback to a previously deployed working container.

http://www.se-radio.net/2016/01/se-radio-show-246-john-wilke...