Kubernetes Deployment Strategies for Zero Downtime

Choose deployment strategy by risk profile

• Rolling update: simple and resource-efficient.
• Blue-green: clean rollback with environment switching.
• Canary: progressive exposure with real user traffic.

Traffic and health controls

Zero downtime depends on readiness checks, pod disruption budgets, and autoscaling tuned for rollout behavior.

• Use startup, liveness, and readiness probes correctly.
• Configure surge and unavailable thresholds intentionally.
• Gate rollout steps with automated SLO checks.

Rollback readiness

If rollback is manual and slow, deployment strategy is incomplete. Rehearse rollback paths and dependency reversibility in staging.