Google Professional Cloud Developer Question 314
Single answerGoogle Cloud PlatformYour team is developing a new feature for a production application hosted on Google Cloud. You want to release the feature gradually to a subset of users while maintaining the ability to disable it instantly if issues arise. Which approach should you use to achieve this?
- A
Implement a feature flag management system to control the feature rollout.
- B
Deploy the feature in a separate microservice and gradually reroute traffic to it using a load balancer.
- C
Use a rolling update deployment strategy to gradually release the feature to all users.
- D
Manually deploy the feature to a subset of users by creating a separate version of the application.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
Feature flags are a best practice for controlling the release of new features in production environments. They provide fine-grained control over who gets access to the feature and allow developers to toggle features on or off instantly in response to issues. In contrast, other methods like deploying separate microservices or using rolling updates are less flexible and introduce more operational overhead.
- A. Correct.
This is the correct approach. Feature flags allow you to enable or disable features dynamically, control their rollout to specific users or groups, and instantly turn off the feature if any issues are detected, making it ideal for gradual rollouts.
- B. Incorrect.
While deploying the feature as a separate microservice and rerouting traffic could work, it adds unnecessary complexity. This approach doesn't provide the immediate toggle capability for enabling/disabling features like feature flags do.
- C. Incorrect.
Rolling updates are a deployment strategy for updating the entire application gradually but are not suited for controlling feature rollouts to specific subsets of users.
- D. Incorrect.
Manually creating a separate version of the application for a subset of users is error-prone, time-consuming, and does not provide the flexibility or speed that feature flags offer.