When would you choose ConfigMaps over canary releases?

ConfigMaps and canary releases serve different purposes in Kubernetes. ConfigMaps are used for managing configuration data separately from application code, while canary releases are a deployment strategy for testing new versions of an application in production with a subset of users. You might choose ConfigMaps over canary releases when the goal is to manage configuration settings without necessitating a new version of the application deployment.

For instance, if you need to change a logging level or modify feature flags without rolling out a new version of your application, ConfigMaps allow you to update these settings easily and dynamically. This approach is useful in scenarios where there are frequent or urgent changes in configurations that do not require testing a new application version.

Example usage of ConfigMap:

apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: app-config data: LOG_LEVEL: "DEBUG" FEATURE_FLAG: "enabled"

ConfigMaps Kubernetes application configuration canary releases deployment strategies dynamic configurations