Extending deployment pipelines with Amazon ECS blue green deployments and lifecycle hooks

The article discusses Amazon ECS's new blue/green deployment strategy and lifecycle hooks, which provide more control and flexibility in deployment pipelines.

• Blue/green deployments allow shifting traffic between two identical environments running different application versions
• Lifecycle hooks are synchronous AWS Lambda functions that can be integrated into deployment workflows
• Hook statuses include SUCCEEDED, FAILED, and IN_PROGRESS, allowing for complex validation and approval processes
• The PRE_SCALE_UP hook can be used for admission logic, such as verifying container image sources
• POST_TEST_TRAFFIC_SHIFT hooks can implement manual approval steps before production traffic migration

The article provides walkthrough examples demonstrating how to use lifecycle hooks for container image validation and manual deployment approvals, showcasing the powerful customization options in Amazon ECS deployments.