APT package versioning for side-by-side application migration

Zero-Downtime Binary Rotation

A small application on Debian Stable requires a migration strategy that avoids downtime by utilizing side-by-side installations of different versions. The goal is to deploy a new version of a binary to a distinct path while the previous version remains active, eventually rotating a symbolic link to point to the new release.

While dpkg and apt manage package installation, standard Debian package naming often prevents multiple versions of the same package from coexisting if they share the same package name. This creates a constraint when attempting to maintain two active versions of a binary for a blue-green switchover without relying on external orchestration tools.

What is the recommended naming convention or configuration for .deb packages to allow simultaneous installation of multiple versions on the same system? How should dependency conflicts be managed if both versions require different versions of the same shared library?