Phase 6: Deployment & Launch

Phase 6: Deployment & Launch

Modernization Overlay: Apply the 2026 Modernization Addendum controls (AI assist + RTG linkage) before phase exit.

Purpose

Move the product from staging to production safely, monitor for issues, and support early users.

Duration

1 week (intensive)

Key Activities

6.1 Release Planning

• Lead: PM + Tech Lead + DevOps

• Document: [ProjectCode]-050-Release-Plan-v1.0.docx

Release Plan Contents:

1. Release Overview

• ├─ Version: v1.0.0 (semantic versioning)

• ├─ Release Date: 2025-12-20, 14:00 UTC

• ├─ Estimated Duration: 30 minutes

• ├─ Deployment Window: 14:00-15:00 UTC (low-traffic period)

• ├─ Rollback Time: <10 minutes if critical issue

• └─ Type: Blue-Green deployment (zero downtime)

2. Pre-Deployment Checklist

• Code freeze: All features in main branch ☐

• Final testing: Smoke tests pass ☐

• Documentation: Updated and reviewed ☐

• Database backups: Taken (tested restore) ☐ ☐

• Monitoring configured: Alerts set up

• On-call team: Scheduled & briefed ☐

• Rollback plan: Reviewed & practiced ☐

• Stakeholder comms: Ready to send ☐

• Customer support: Trained & ready ☐

• Go/No-Go decision: Made by PM/Sponsor ☐

3. Deployment Steps

Step 1: Code Preparation (1 hour before)

• ├─ Tag code: git tag -a v1.0.0 ├─ Build artifacts: docker build -t paymentapp:v1.0.0

• ├─ Push to registry: docker push

• └─ Smoke test on artifacts (basic functionality)

Step 2: Infrastructure Preparation (30 min before) ├─ Health checks on both environments ├─ Database backups verified ├─ CDN cache warming └─ Final resource checks

Step 3: Deployment - Blue-Green Strategy ├─ Green environment: New version (staged) ├─ Blue environment: Current version (live) ├─ Deploy to Green: │├─ Pull new Docker image │├─ Run database migrations (if any) │├─ Start services on Green │└─ Run smoke tests ├─ Switch traffic: Load balancer Blue → Green │├─ Change DNS/routing rules │├─ Verify traffic flowing to Green │└─ Monitor error rate └─ Keep Blue running (1 hour) for quick rollback

Step 4: Post-Deployment Verification (10 min)

├─ Check error rates (target: <0.1%) ├─ Verify response times (<200ms) ├─ Confirm database integrity ├─ Test critical paths (login, payment) └─ Check user reports (live support)

4. Rollback Plan

If critical issues detected: ├─ Decision: Made by Tech Lead + PM ├─ Execution: Switch traffic back to Blue ├─ Timing: <5 minutes to stable state ├─ Communication: Notify stakeholders └─ Post-incident: Root cause analysis

Rollback Triggers: ├─ Error rate >1% ├─ Response time >500ms ├─ Database corruption detected ├─ Payment processing failures └─ Security vulnerability discovered

5. Monitoring & Alerts

Real-time metrics:

• ├─ Request rate (target: consistent)

• ├─ Error rate (alert if >0.5%)

• ├─ Response time (alert if >300ms)

• ├─ CPU/Memory (alert if >80%)

• ├─ Database connections (alert if >75%)

• └─ Payment success rate (alert if <99%)

6. Communication Plan

Pre-launch:

• ├─ 1 week before: Announce feature launch

• ├─ 3 days before: Demo + FAQs

• └─ 1 day before: Final reminder

During launch (every 30 min): ├─ Status updates to #releases Slack channel ├─ Internal status: "In Progress" → "Complete" └─ Customer communication: Queued

Post-launch:

• ├─ Deployment summary

• ├─ Known issues & workarounds

• ├─ 24-hour support plan

• └─ Next steps

7. Escalation Contacts

• ├─ Tech Lead (Code issues): john@company.com ├─ DevOps (Infrastructure): alex@company.com

• ├─ PM (Business decisions): pm@company.com

• ├─ CEO (Go/No-go): ceo@company.com

• └─ On-call (24/7 support): oncall@company.com

6.2 Production Environment Setup

• Lead: DevOps Engineer

• Activities:

  • Provision production infrastructure (AWS, GCP, etc.)

  • Configure databases (replicated, backed up)

  • Set up load balancers

  • Configure CDN for static assets

  • Set up monitoring & logging

  • Configure backup strategy

Production Checklist:

Infrastructure:

• ☐ 3+ web servers (high availability)

• ☐ Database primary + read replicas

• ☐ Redis cache cluster

• ☐ Load balancer configured

• ☐ CDN enabled for static assets

• ☐ SSL certificates installed

Security:

• ☐ Firewall rules configured

• ☐ WAF (Web Application Firewall) enabled

• ☐ Secrets management (credentials, API keys)

• ☐ VPC/Network isolation

• ☐ DDoS protection enabled

Monitoring & Logging:

• ☐ Application metrics (Prometheus)

• ☐ Centralized logging (ELK Stack)

• ☐ Error tracking (Sentry)

• ☐ Uptime monitoring (Pingdom) ☐ Alerting configured (PagerDuty)

Backup & Disaster Recovery:

• ☐ Database backups: Hourly (24hr retention) ☐ Backup testing: Restore test weekly ☐ Disaster recovery plan: Documented

• ☐ RTO: 1 hour ☐ RPO: <1 hour of data loss

6.3 Pre-Launch Checklist

• Owner: PM

• Due: 24 hours before launch

Code & Quality:

• ☐ Code freeze: All changes in main branch ☐ Final build: Docker image tagged v1.0.0 ☐ Smoke tests: Pass on production config

• ☐ Security scan: No critical issues

• ☐ Requirement coverage report reviewed (Built/Tested/Deferred status for each approved requirement ID)

• ☐ Performance test: Baseline established

Documentation:

• ☐ Release notes written

• ☐ API documentation updated

• ☐ User guide prepared

• ☐ Known issues documented ☐ FAQ published

Operations:

• ☐ Database backup: Completed & tested

• ☐ Production credentials: Distributed securely ☐ Monitoring alerts: Tested & confirmed

• ☐ On-call rotation: Scheduled

• ☐ Support team: Trained

Communications:

• ☐ Customer emails: Scheduled ☐ Blog post: Drafted ☐ Social media: Scheduled ☐ Internal memo: Distributed ☐ Slack channels: Prepared

Go/No-Go Decision:

• ☐ PM: Ready? YES / NO ☐ Tech Lead: Ready? YES / NO ☐ DevOps: Ready? YES / NO ☐ QA Lead: Ready? YES / NO ☐ Sponsor: Approval given? YES / NO

Final Decision: [GO / NO-GO] Approved by: [Name] Date/Time: [2025-12-20 13:00 UTC]

6.4 Deployment Execution

• Lead: DevOps Engineer (with Tech Lead on standby)

• Duration: 30 minutes

Real-time Deployment Log:

2025-12-20 14:00 UTC: Deployment Started │

• ├─ 14:01: Pull Docker image: paymentapp:v1.0.0 ├─ 14:02: Health checks: All green

• ├─ 14:03: Deploy to Green environment

• │ Pulling image... Done ✓

• │ Starting containers... 3 of 3 up ✓ │ Running migrations... Done ✓ │

• ├─ 14:05: Smoke tests on Green

│ POST /auth/register... Pass (1.2s) ✓ │ POST /auth/login... Pass (0.9s) ✓ │ POST /payments/process... Pass (1.5s) ✓ │ GET /dashboard... Pass (0.8s) ✓ │ ├─ 14:06: Switch traffic: Blue (old) → Green (new) │ Updating load balancer... Done ✓ │ Testing connection... Connected ✓ │ ├─ 14:07: Verify live traffic │ Error rate: 0.02% ( ✓ Acceptable) │ Response time (p95): 142ms ( ✓ Good) │ Transaction success: 99.98% ( ✓ Excellent) │ ├─ 14:08: Blue environment status │ Still running (1 hour, for rollback) │ Database: Syncing (read replica) │

└─ 14:09 UTC: ✓✓✓ DEPLOYMENT SUCCESSFUL ✓✓✓

Post-Deployment Monitoring (1 hour): ├─ 14:30: Error rate: 0.04% (↑ Still acceptable) ├─ 15:00: Error rate: 0.03% (↓ Stabilizing) │ Transaction volume: 1200 tx/min (↑ Healthy) │ Active users: 450+ (New system working!) │ Support tickets: 2 (Both low-priority) │ └─ System stable, Blue environment shut down ✓

Deployment Complete: Success

6.5 Post-Launch Monitoring (24 hours)

• Lead: DevOps + QA Team

• On-Call: Tech Lead available 24/7

24-Hour Monitoring Plan:

Hour 0-4 (Launch + immediate aftermath):

├─ Alert on any metric anomaly ├─ Support team standing by

• ├─ Tech team in #incidents Slack channel ├─ Refresh status every 5 minutes

• └─ Action: Fix any issues immediately

Hour 4-12 (Overnight monitoring):

• ├─ On-call engineer monitoring

• ├─ Automated alerts enabled

• ├─ Support team on rotation

• ├─ Refresh status every 30 minutes

• └─ Action: Page on-call if issues critical

Hour 12-24 (Second day):

• ├─ Full team available

• ├─ Monitor key metrics

• ├─ Support team handles user issues

• ├─ Refresh status every 60 minutes

• └─ Action: Gather feedback from users

Key Metrics Tracked:

• ├─ Error rate (target: <0.1%)

• ├─ Response time (target: <200ms)

• ├─ Transaction success (target: >99.9%)

• ├─ Active users (expecting: ramp up to 500+)

• ├─ Database performance (no degradation)

• ├─ Payment processing (real transactions working)

• └─ Support ticket volume (monitor trends)

Critical Thresholds:

If ANY of these triggered:

• ├─ Error rate >1%: Page on-call immediately

• ├─ Payment failures >0.5%: Page on-call immediately

• ├─ Response time >500ms: Alert team

• ├─ Database latency >300ms: Alert DevOps

• ├─ Memory usage >85%: Alert DevOps

• └─ Disk space <10%: Alert DevOps

Post-Launch Report (24 hours after):

• ├─ Total transactions: 15,000

• ├─ Error rate: 0.08% (within tolerance)

• ├─ User feedback: Positive (95% satisfaction)

• ├─ Critical issues: 0

• ├─ High issues: 2 (known, documented)

• ├─ Performance: Exceeded targets

• └─ Status: ✓✓✓ Launch Successful!

Deployment Deliverables

Success Criteria

✅ Zero downtime deployment ✅ Error rate <0.1% post-launch

✅ All critical paths working

✅ No data loss

✅ Rollback tested and ready

• ✅ Customer communications sent

✅ Support team handling users