AZ-400 Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions Exam

Configure Emergency Hotfix Pipelines

Emergency hotfix pipelines play a pivotal role in maintaining application stability during unforeseen bug occurrences in production environments. A well-defined hotfix path plan ensures that high-priority code fixes can be addressed promptly without disrupting the overall deployment workflow.

Hotfix Branch Creation

If a bug is discovered after deploying to production, follow these steps to deploy a hotfix:

1. Identify the Commit: Locate the last commit that was deployed to production in Azure DevOps.
2. Create a Hotfix Branch: Use the commit ID from the collaboration branch to create a new hotfix branch.
3. Switch to Hotfix Branch: Navigate to Azure Data Factory Studio and switch to this newly created hotfix branch.
4. Bug Fix and Testing: Fix the bug and test your changes thoroughly using Azure Data Factory Studio.

Deployment Process

After verifying the bug fix:

1. Export ARM Template: The verified fix should be exported as an ARM Template.
2. Manual Build Check-in: Manually check this build into the adf_publish branch.
3. Trigger Release Pipeline: If configured, the pipeline will trigger automatically based on adf_publish check-ins; if not, manually queue the release.
4. Deploy Hotfix: Deploy the hotfix release to both test and production environments, ensuring it includes the prior production payload plus the recent fix.

Managing Hotfixes

To ensure that later releases do not reintroduce the same bug:

1. Update Development Branch: Integrate the hotfix changes into the development branch.

This process ensures continuity and avoids redundancy in future deployments.

Best Practices in Hotfix Management

When configuring hotfix pipelines, consider implementing:

• Branching Strategies: Define branch strategies that isolate urgent fixes from regular development branches.
• Automated Testing and Validation: Configure pipelines to include automated validation tests.
• Manual Approval Gates: Include manual approval gates as necessary.
• Rollback Procedures: Careful planning for rollback tasks ensures service continuity during high-priority deployments.

These strategies help minimize production downtime and maintain application stability, essential for responding effectively to high-priority code fixes within Azure DevOps pipelines.

Conclusion

In summary, configuring emergency hotfix pipelines involves creating isolated branches for urgent fixes, exporting and deploying verified fixes through designated pipelines, and integrating these changes back into development branches. By adhering to best practices such as defining robust branching strategies, including automated validation and manual approval gates, and planning rollback procedures, teams can effectively respond to high-priority code fixes while ensuring minimal disruption to production environments and maintaining application stability.