DevOps3 min read
Zero downtime deployments: rolling, blue-green and canary compared
Zero downtime is not a deployment tool setting. It is a property of an application that can run two versions at once.
Before a Next.js site goes live, verify environment variables and secrets separation, the build output's rendering modes, caching and revalidation behaviour, error and 404 handling, security headers, SEO metadata and sitemap, analytics and error tracking, and a rollback path. Run the checks against a production build, not the dev server.
“The measure of a deployment process is not whether it succeeds. It is how quickly you can undo it.”
— ROVQIX engineering runbook
Managed platforms handle ISR, image optimisation and edge caching without work. Self-hosting via the standalone output or a container is well supported and cheaper at scale, but you own the CDN, cache invalidation and image pipeline. Choose based on whether you have the operational capacity.
Run next build followed by next start and browse the result. Caching, error boundaries and route rendering modes all behave differently from next dev.
Aim to keep first-load JavaScript under about 170 KB compressed on content routes. Application dashboards run higher, but the number should be a deliberate decision with a review threshold in CI.
Password-protect it or return X-Robots-Tag: noindex from the staging environment only, driven by an environment variable — never by a code branch someone has to remember to revert.
ROVQIX Engineering
Engineering team, ROVQIX
The ROVQIX engineering team builds and maintains web platforms, APIs and infrastructure for clients across SaaS, ecommerce and enterprise. These notes come out of real production work — deploys, incidents, migrations and audits.
ROVQIXdesigns and builds production web platforms — Next.js front ends, Node.js APIs and the infrastructure behind them. Tell us what you're building and we'll scope it with you.
Zero downtime is not a deployment tool setting. It is a property of an application that can run two versions at once.
Most 'Next.js is showing stale data' bugs are one of four caches doing exactly what it was told. Here is the mental model that makes them predictable.
Technical SEO is mostly engineering work: correct status codes, canonical URLs, crawlable HTML and fast pages. None of it requires a keyword tool.
No spam. Just the occasional case study and craft breakdown.