From f174e2765ca4cf74113ee087ba4c3fb04d4cb1ec Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Patrick Vinograd Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2022 16:49:43 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Create release-technical-strategy.md --- .../engineering/release-technical-strategy.md | 40 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 40 insertions(+) create mode 100644 products/health-care/digital-health-modernization/engineering/release-technical-strategy.md diff --git a/products/health-care/digital-health-modernization/engineering/release-technical-strategy.md b/products/health-care/digital-health-modernization/engineering/release-technical-strategy.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..4b6c10e8e2c --- /dev/null +++ b/products/health-care/digital-health-modernization/engineering/release-technical-strategy.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +# Health Apartment Release Technical Strategy + +This document discusses the options and concerns related to how to release health apartment features. + +The health apartment roll-out will be phased in a couple of ways: +* Individual tools (secure messaging, prescriptions, health records, appointments) will be released as they become ready, rather than waiting for the entire suite of health tools to be ready. +* Each individual tool may be released in phases as units of partial functionality are completed. These partial launch phases may be geared towards controlled user acceptance testing (UAT) or a broader opt-in beta/preview. + +Users at large won't be automatically redirected to tools on VA.gov until those tools are deemed to be feature-complete, i.e. all desired activities that are possible on MHV today are available on VA.gov. (We avoid saying feature _parity_ with MHV in case some features are determined not to be needed). + +## Available Approaches - VA.gov Platform + +### Separate Subdomain +**What it is:** A subdomain such as `health-beta.va.gov` where early access to features is enabled. + +**When it's appropriate:** In the context of the health apartment, probably never. + +**Limitations:** This option is described here because it has been raised as a possibility. But, instantiating a subdomain would have a very high compliance and infrastructure burden. Even approving a new public subdomain requires a multi-month approval process, plus implementation by both the VA.gov Platform infrastructure team and the VA Gateway Operations team. A new public SSL certificate has to be purchased and provisioned. Getting a subdomain to work with site authentication is liable to be complicated. And you still might need to employ some of the following techniques to further limit access. + +A subdomain does make it more clear that the functionality is experimental, but that can also be accomplished via a banner on specific early-access pages within www.va.gov. + +### Feature Flag - Specific Users + + +### Feature Flag - Percentage of Users + +### Opt-in Beta + +### Released but Unlinked + +## Release Functionality on MHV + + + +## Release Phases - Secure Messaging + +What is the threshold for the minimum + +## Open Questions +1. How difficult is it to switch the URL path/slug of a VFS application? Is it a one-liner or does it require renaming a bunch of things? (Context for question is whether we need to decide the final URL path location for each tool sooner rather than later)