Domain 8: Release Engineering

CI/CD, Canary Deployments, DORA Metrics

SRE Bot | Release | Max 30 Points

0-6
Ad-hoc
7-12
Foundational
13-18
Standardized
19-24
Advanced
25-30
Optimized

Scoring Criteria by Level

LevelCriteria
1Manual deployments; release days are stressful; no rollback
2Basic CI; some CD; deployments weekly/monthly
3Full CI/CD; canary deployments; DORA metrics tracked
4Elite DORA metrics; automated rollback; feature flags
5Continuous deployment; zero-downtime; progressive delivery

Assessment Questions

#QuestionMax
1How mature is your CI/CD pipeline?6
2How do you implement canary releases?6
3What are your DORA metrics?6
4How fast can you rollback?6
5How do you use feature flags?6

Focus Areas

  • DORA: Frequency, lead time, MTTR, change fail rate
  • Canary: Progressive rollout with auto-rollback
  • Feature Flags: Decouple deploy from release
  • Rollback: <5 minute recovery capability

Anti-Patterns (Red Flags)

  • Manual deployments with scripts
  • Big bang releases
  • No rollback capability
  • Releases require downtime
  • DORA metrics unknown

Evidence Checklist

  • CI/CD pipeline fully automated
  • Canary or blue-green deployments
  • DORA metrics dashboard exists
  • Rollback tested and documented
  • Feature flag system in use

DORA Elite Targets

MetricElite Target
Deploy FrequencyMultiple/day
Lead Time<1 hour
MTTR<1 hour
Change Fail Rate<15%

Deploy Boring

Releases should be non-events.