Serverless App Engine:End-to-end canary release based on Java service gateway

The end-to-end canary release feature provided by Serverless App Engine (SAE) allows for comprehensive traffic control without altering business codes. This topic explains how to configure SAE end-to-end canary release using the Java service gateway.

Terms

• Lane: An isolated environment defined for applications of the same version. Only requests that match specific routing rules can be routed to the tagged applications in a lane. Applications and lanes are in a many-to-many relationship where an application may belong to multiple lanes, and a lane may contain multiple applications.

• Lane group: A collection of lanes used to organize and isolate lanes by team or scenario.

• Baseline environment: The default environment for untagged applications, which acts as the fallback environment when traffic fails to meet the routing rules.

Scenario

This topic simulates an invocation trace to demonstrate the end-to-end canary release. Without changing any code, you only need to configure tag-based routing rules for an ingress application. The tags will be propagated through the trace to subsequent applications. Traffic that meets the specified traffic rules is routed to the canary versions based on version tags.

The deployment of each test application is as follows:

Test application: Demo Program.zip, which includes three backend applications A, B, and C, and the GW service (Java gateway). These backend applications can be deployed as baseline or canary applications.

The traffic distribution diagram is as follows:

Normal traffic invocation:

Java service gateway -> Application sae-a -> Application sae-b -> Application sae-c.

Tagged traffic invocation:

• t=g1 traffic: Java service gateway -> Application sae-a-a1 -> Application sae-b -> Application sae-c-c1.

• t=g2 traffic: Java service gateway -> Application sae-a-a2 -> Application sae-b-b2 -> Application sae-c-c2.

Prerequisites

The Microservices Governance Professional or Enterprise Edition has been activated. For more information, see Activate Microservices Governance.

Limits

• The end-to-end canary release feature is applicable only to microservice applications created on or after November 8, 2023.

• The feature is supported only in the new version of the console.

• End-to-end canary release integrates the tag-based routing feature of Microservices Governance. If you want to use the end-to-end canary release feature, do not configure canary release and tag-based routing rules for your applications.

  Limits

  Item	Version	Description
  Spring Cloud	Spring Cloud Edgware or later	N/A
  Dubbo	2.5.3 to 2.7.8	Dubbo 3.0 and later versions are in canary release. If you plan to use these versions, submit a ticket to contact technical support.
  Client	Resttemplate Spring Cloud OpenFeign	N/A
  Java Development Kit (JDK)	JDK 6, 7, and 8 versions	JDK 11 version is in canary release. If you plan to use it, submit a ticket to contact technical support.
  Load balancing	Ribbon 2.0.x or later LoadBalancer 3.0.x or later	N/A
  Spring Cloud Gateway	2.1.0.RELEASE or later	N/A

1. Deploy baseline applications and enable microservice governance

1.1 Deploy baseline applications

Create four applications: sae-a, sae-b, sae-c, and sae-gw (Java service gateway). This topic covers key steps. For the full procedure, see Application Deployment.

1. Log on to the SAE console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Applications > Applications. Select a region in the top navigation bar and a namespace from the Namespace drop-down list, and then click Create Application.

   

2. On the Application Basic Information wizard page, configure the parameters in the Basic Information Settings and Capacity Settings sections.

   In this example, deploy the three baseline applications sae-a, sae-b, and sae-c by uploading a code package.

3. Choose Create Application with One Click.

   (Optional) If you want to configure advanced settings, click Next: Advanced Settings to access the Advanced Settings wizard. Once configured, click Create Application. For details on advanced settings, see Application deployment.

1.2 Enable microservice governance for baseline applications

On the Application List page, click the application name. In the left-side navigation pane, select Microservice governance > Application Overview, and click Activate Microservice Governance.

Activation takes 1 to 2 minutes. Please wait.

2. Deploy canary applications

Deploy canary applications based on the baseline applications:

• Two canary applications, sae-a-a1 and sae-a-a2, on application sae-a.

• One canary application sae-b-b1 on application sae-b.

• Two canary applications, sae-c-c1 and sae-c-c2, on application sae-c.

The procedure is as follows:

1. On the Application List page, click the icon next to the baseline application, and click Create Canary Application.

   Note

   If microservice governance is not activated for the baseline application, you cannot create a canary application.

2. On the Basic Information page, configure the following parameters, and click Next: Advanced Settings.

   1. In the Basic Information Settings section, set the Application Name and deploy the application using an image or code package. For more information, see Application Deployment.

      Note

      • The Namespace configurations of the canary applications inherit from the baseline applications, so no modifications are needed.

      • The Application Deployment Method also inherits from the baseline applications. In this example, re-uploading the code package is not required. But you can adjust this parameter as needed in a production environment.

   2. In the Canary Tag section, set the Value for the tag. See Scenario for the tag configurations.

      

   3. In the Capacity Settings section, configure the resource specifications and the number of instances.

3. On the Advanced Settings wizard page, configure the parameters as need. For more information, see Advanced settings.

4. Click Create Application.

3. Create lane groups and lanes

3.1 Create lane groups

1. After the canary applications are created, return to the Application List page, select Microservice governance > End-to-end Canary Release in the left-side navigation pane, select the target namespace on the End-to-end Canary Release page, and click Create Lane Group and Lane.

   

2. In the pop-up Create Lane Group panel, configure the following parameters, and click OK:

   1. Customize the Lane Group Name.

   2. Select Ingress Type as Java Service Gateway.

   3. Choose the created Java service gateway application (sae-gw in this example) as the Lane Group Traffic Ingress.

   4. Select all baseline applications for Lane Group Application.

   

3.2 Create lanes

When creating lanes, you can choose either Canary Release by Content or Canary Release by Ratio. However, once the first lane is created, you cannot change the mode for subsequent lanes.

The following table provides configuration examples for this scenario. Adjust according to your needs in a production environment.

4. Verify results

4.1 Test canary release traffic

# Test command
curl 8.130.XX.XX/A/a
# Test result
A[192.168.XX.XX][config=base] -> B[192.168.XX.XX] -> C[192.168.XX.XX]
# Test result
Agray[192.168.XX.XX][config=base] -> B[192.168.XX.XX] -> Cgray[192.168.XX.XX]

4.2 Microservice governance observability

Go to the End-to-end Canary Release page on the SAE console. In the Lane Group and Involved Applications section, click the target application. In the Application QPS Monitoring section, view the lane traffic of baseline and canary versions. Select the playback time to display the data within the specific time frame.