Application configuration versioning and rollback

View deployment history to track application configurations, compare and rollback to older configurations.

Every time you deploy or redeploy an application, a new version is created. After it is successfully deployed, you can navigate to the deployment history to view the history of all the configurations. This can help you track which configurations are deployed, who deployed them, when it was deployed, and see any comments you provided while deploying the version.

In addition, you can compare configuration between two versions. You can also rollback to an older configuration by copying it to draft and redeploying it, with or without additional changes.

The application card shows the date and time of the last deployed version and the version number of the deployed version in production. You can click on the version number to navigate to the deployment history of the application.

Here is an example of deployment history with different versions, deployment time, deployment status, and comments entered in the deployment description:

The versioning of application configurations and rollback, is based on this state diagram:

Every time you create an application, edit any configuration parameters, save it and do not deploy it to production, it stays in the Draft status. After you’re finished configuring the application, you can enter comments for this version in the deployment description. Then, if you deploy the application to production for the first time, it goes to the Deployed status. It gets a version number under Version in the Deployment History with deployment comments.

For example, HTTP-APP is in draft version initially when deployment is still pending, the version is Draft:

After being successfully deployed to production, it goes to Deployed status. You can see it is Version 1. The email of the admin who made the changes, with deployment description comments, and the timestamp are shown:

If you make any further configuration changes to the app, a draft version is automatically created in the Deployment History:

After you deploy the app again, the earlier Version 1 moves to Archived status and the latest Version 2 will be in the Deployed status.

Configuration rollback

If for any reason the latest version of the application does not work due to any mis-configuration issues, the admin can restore an older configuration. You can copy any of the archived versions, and you will get a new version in the draft state. You can then deploy this draft version to production.

  1. From the top menu bar, click Applications.
  2. On the application card select the version number hyperlink next to Last Deployed date.
  3. In the Deployment History section, click the Copy to draft icon on the version you want to rollback your configuration to.
    For example, if you want to restore version 4, click the Copy to draft icon.
  4. You will get a warning message that the configurations will be saved to draft. Click Yes.
  5. The configuration gets copied to draft. You can deploy this version by going to the DEPLOYMENT tab and clicking Deploy. Or, you can make any additional changes to the older version (your draft) and the redeploy by going to the DEPLOYMENT tab and clicking Deploy, after entering any deployment comments in the description.
    For this example, version 4 becomes your new deployed version 11. Your earlier version 10 moved from Deployed to Archived status.

Compare configurations of two versions

You can do a side-by-side comparison of the configurations of any two versions of an application. It shows the changes you have made in the configurations, which sections have changes, and who (admin’s email is shown) has made the changes.

  1. From the top menu bar, click Applications.
  2. On the application card, click the Deploy label. This takes you to the Deployment History section.
  3. In the Deployment History section, click the Compare version icon () in the row you want to compare. By default that version is compared against the deployed version or draft version which ever is the latest.

    It shows the total number of differences between the two selected versions. You can also select any other versions from the two dropdowns, click Compare, to compare them. If you click on the section, you can see the details of what was changed and who made the changes. You can view only the changes between the two versions using ONLY CHANGES or see the entire two versions using VIEW ALL. The differences are highlighted between the two versions.

    For example, in this application the admin is comparing version 3 with the draft version. The application name has been modified in the general section of the application.

Incompatible versions

If you delete any connector, IdP, directory, device posture tiers or tags that are being used in an archived configuration version then that version of your application moves to an incompatible state since it cannot find the dependent objects associated with the application. Then, this incompatible version of the application cannot be copied to draft, edited and re-deployed. It can only be used to view and compare with other versions. Archived and deployed versions of the applications can be used for copy and compare operations.