Split test with Shadow Traffic

or: How I learned that B doesn't have to exist and A can be B while still being A

A/B or split testing is a well thought out path at this point. Give 2 users slightly different experiences and measure how they behave. The uses of this technique can help in identifying optimal designs, measure feature impact, and to roll out new functionality to a small sample of your user base.

A video from thoughtworks built on that final use case and introduced the concept of “Shadow Traffic”.

“Technique for decision making based on real user behavior - Klaus Fleerkötter & Irene Torres”.

One way experience

The traditional model is for a user to make a request through an interface, some logic to be run through and then a response to be returned to that user. While at the same time this interaction is being monitored by some tooling to make sure there are no issues, or potential issues.

User making a request to a server and getting a response while the server is monitored

An update to the logic here would have the logic service replaced with the new version, and all users going to this server would reach the new logic.

A/B or Split testing

Shadow traffic