Synthetic Tenant Migration for Feature Validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In cloud computing environments, features receive disproportionately low usage in internal rings compared to external rings, leading to undetected code regressions and customer service disruptions due to inadequate testing and validation.
Innovation Solution
The system dynamically identifies top features based on external usage and migrates or replicates sites with high usage from external to internal rings to match customer usage patterns, ensuring sufficient internal testing and validation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If features are deployed to internal rings for traditional ring level validation, then feature testing and validation are performed before external release, but internal feature usage is disproportionately low compared to external usage
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates synthetic internal tenants that replicate external tenant usage patterns. These synthetic tenants copy the behavior, feature usage, and operational characteristics of real external customers, allowing internal rings to experience feature usage that mirrors production environments. This resolves the contradiction by enabling high internal usage (matching external patterns) while maintaining the reliability of pre-release validation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts usage parameters of synthetic tenants based on external telemetry data. By changing parameters such as feature usage frequency, operation types, and workload characteristics to match external production patterns, the system ensures internal rings receive proportionate usage for accurate validation while maintaining reliable pre-release testing.
2Loss of time
If features receive low usage in internal rings, then traditional validation processes are simpler and faster, but code regressions go undetected until external release
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary population of internal rings with synthetic tenants that are pre-configured with external usage patterns before feature deployment. This preliminary action ensures that when features are released to internal rings, the synthetic tenants immediately generate representative usage, enabling regression detection to occur during the validation phase rather than after external release, thus maintaining both speed and reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The synthetic tenants autonomously generate usage patterns that mirror external customer behavior without requiring manual configuration or intervention. They self-service the validation process by automatically interacting with features according to learned external patterns, enabling continuous regression detection while maintaining fast validation cycles.
3Reliability
If more internal feature usage is generated to match external patterns, then regression detection improves, but system complexity increases due to additional tenant management
Solution Approach 1:
Rather than manually creating and managing diverse synthetic tenants, the system copies external tenant usage patterns directly into internal rings. This copying approach automatically generates the necessary complexity in usage patterns while keeping the management mechanism simple - the system merely replicates what already exists in external environments, achieving high regression detection accuracy without proportional increases in management complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The synthetic tenant system serves multiple functions simultaneously: it generates usage for regression detection, validates feature performance, stress-tests the system, and provides performance baselines. This multi-functionality reduces overall system complexity by consolidating what would otherwise require multiple separate testing mechanisms into a single unified approach.
Data Source
AI summary
Traditionally, when a feature is updated or a new feature is released, the feature undergoes internal testing and validation before external distribution. However, some features may receive proportionately less internal usage than customer usage reflected externally. Low internal usage of features can lead to weak telemetry data, which can allow code regressions (e.g., bugs) to go undetected until the features are released to customers. Accordingly, accelerated internal feature usage is provided to mirror external customer usage. Highly used features are dynamically identified and, any deficiencies in internal feature usage are identified. Tenant sites estimated to generate at least a portion of the deficiency in feature usage are identified. These sites may be migrated or replicated to internal validation rings to generate additional internal feature usage. By increasing internal testing and validation, the stability and reliability of feature releases are increased, thereby improving customer experience and satisfaction with the software product.