There a common belief that rollback is the ultimate safety net

TL;DR; Relying on rollback as a safety net is risky, especially for stateful applications where it can cause data issues and failures. Safer approaches include progressive delivery methods like feature flags and canary releases, which help detect and limit problems early. Teams should focus on making deployments safe to fail rather than assuming rollback will fix mistakes.

Published on 13 February 2025

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

1 minute read

https://nkdagility.com/resources/3-BmsmOEWfJ

There’s a common belief that rollback is the ultimate safety net. That if something goes wrong, we’ll just roll back and everything will be fine.

Except, rolling back is often more dangerous than rolling forward.

For stateful applications, rollback can mean data inconsistencies, orphaned processes, and unexpected failures. It assumes that we can always rewind time cleanly, which is rarely the case. The better approach? Fail forward.

Progressive delivery techniques like feature flags, canary releases, and automated rollback halts allow teams to limit exposure, detect problems early, and stop bad deployments before they do real damage. If your team struggles to roll forward, what makes you think they have the skills to execute the far more complex task of rolling back?

Modern software delivery isn’t about reversing mistakes, it’s about designing deployments so failure is safe. How is your team handling failure today?

Also published on: LinkedIn

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