Release validation
This use case demonstrates how Virtana enables engineering and operations teams to validate application releases by comparing performance across versions and time periods. It focuses on identifying regressions, visualizing degradation, and supporting go/no-go deployment decisions.
Scenario
An application team is preparing to roll out a new version of a critical customer-facing service. To reduce risk, the team validates the release by comparing the behavior of:
Version N: Previous stable release
Version N+1: Current release candidate
Both versions are tested under similar user loads and traffic patterns in a staging or pre-production environment that closely mirrors production.
Setup
Before you use this workflow, make sure the following conditions are met.
Environment configuration
To follow this use case, your environment includes:
Staging and production environment available
Load testing tools integrated
Application instrumentation enabled
Distributed tracing configured
Centralized logging enabled
Infrastructure and container monitoring are active
Test preparation
To prepare comparable datasets, follow these steps:
Deploy Version N o the staging or pre-production environment.
Run baseline load tests that represent expected or peak traffic patterns.
Capture performance metrics, logs, and traces for the baseline period.
Deploy Version N+1 to the same environment.
Re-run the same load tests.
Collect telemetry for Version N+1 under equivalent conditions.
All data is stored and indexed in Virtana Platform so it can be used in service comparison views.
Trigger
The release validation workflow typically begins when a new application version (N+1) is deployed to staging or pre-production. Virtana Platform then uses the collected telemetry from both versions to enable automated or guided comparative analysis
Use case workflow
This use case performs the following steps.
Step 1: Select release comparison window
Perform the following steps:
In Container Observability page, navigate to Reports > Service > Comparison.
Select the target service or workload you want to validate.
For example, you can select two time periods:
Baseline Period: 15th–16th (Version N)
Comparison Period: 16th–17th (Version N+1)
This view lets you perform time-based comparisons for the same service across two different windows that correspond to Version N and Version N+1.
Step 2: Run comparative analysis
The Service Comparison report shows side-by-side views of key metrics across both periods, such as request latency, error rates, or resource utilization.
This gives you a clear, quantitative view of how the new release behaves compared with the previous stable version.
Benefits
Performing formal release validation with Virtana Service Comparison provides:
Reduced risk of failed releases
Faster feedback to developers
Improved release quality
Data-driven deployment decisions
Lower rollback rates
Summary
Virtana enables teams to objectively evaluate application changes, automatically detect regressions, and make confident deployment decisions. By integrating Service Comparison into your release process, you can raise release quality, reduce production risk, and deliver more predictable application performance over time. For reference implementation details, see Service Comparison.