Smooth rebuild

Smooth rebuild lets you refresh your Optimizely Graph deployment without downtime. It follows a blue-green deployment model, where a second deployment (green slot) is created while your current deployment (blue slot) stays active. Test updated configurations or data models in the green slot, then promote them to live when verified.

A smooth rebuild is useful when you need to:

• Refresh your deployment from a clean state to resolve legacy issues.
• Test updated data models in parallel with the production environment.
• Upgrade configurations that introduce features, fixes, or performance improvements.

Smooth rebuild process

When you start a smooth rebuild in Optimizely Graph, the system creates a deployment slot. The system begins syncing content from your CMS to this slot.

After the first data sync from the CMS database completes, the status changes to DELTA SYNCING. Optimizely Graph then syncs any content changes made since the rebuild started only to the green slot, keeping it up to date before promotion.

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Warning

Until the green slot is abandoned or accepted, all content is synced to the green slot instead of the slot currently supporting the live site. Content updates are not visible on the live site until the green slot is abandoned or accepted.

Monitor rebuild progress in your Optimizely Graph environment, including the following:

• Rebuild start time
• Number of pending and synced items
• Number of failed items

Query slots during rebuild

Test and verify the green slot before promoting it to a live environment.

Use GraphQL in GraphiQL

1. Open Optimizely Graph playground.
2. Enable New to query the green slot.
3. Run your test queries and compare results with the live slot.

Use the GraphQL API

To query the green slot through the API, include the following HTTP header:

cg-query-new: true

This directs your request to the green slot while keeping the live (blue) slot unaffected.

Finalize or abandon the rebuild

After testing the green slot, choose one of the following options:

• Accept – Promotes the green slot to a live state. Optimizely Graph routes all requests to this slot.
• Abandon – Discards the green slot and keeps the existing deployment. All content changed since the smooth rebuild started is synced back to the green slot from CMS.

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Warning

When you accept the rebuild, reverting is only possible to the state before the rebuild started. Any changes made since then are lost.

When you click Accept, the system promotes the green slot and sets the rebuild status to IDLE. You can later start another smooth rebuild if needed.

Learn more about how smooth rebuild is used in the following:

• CMS 12