blue green deployment
compound.compound. a way of updating software where you have two identical environments, one live and one idle. You send users to the new version only when it is ready, which makes updates safer.
compound. a software release strategy that utilizes two identical production environments, only one of which serves live traffic at any given time. This methodology minimizes downtime and risk by allowing the idle environment to be fully tested before traffic is rerouted to it.
The team used a blue-green deployment to update the app without any downtime.
By using a blue-green deployment, the engineers were able to roll back the update instantly when they noticed a bug in the new version.
Implementing a blue-green deployment requires robust automation and database synchronization, but it provides a critical safety net by ensuring that a known-good environment is always available for immediate failover.
A compound term formed from the names of two distinct colours used to distinguish between two identical server environments. The naming convention is attributed to Dan North and Jez Humble, who popularised the concept in 2005.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Last updated July 22, 2026