Website Upgrade - Avoid Downtime
- by nolan.sipos
I have been requested to investigate how I can reduce the downtime of our website upgrades.
We maintain a DNN site with both public facing pages and member only pages. The member only pages are directly linked to our core application database while the public pages are not.
Our current process is to redirect website users as soon as the upgrade process begins, which includes
Backup of the Prod DB
Update Prod DB
Update Executables (Application)
Upgrade Website Application (If this requires an update)
Install Dependencies
Upgrade sub systems like communication engine and payment broker
Update various configuration files
Perform testing of systems
Restart all services
Allow access to site
This process can take from 2 to 8 hours depending on upgrade required, scripts to be run, size of database and number or portals.
My initial thoughts are to restrict users to read only pages and any update pages would be unavailable.
Could anyone please offer suggestions as to the best practices for what I would think to be a common problem so that we can reduce this down time and if we need infrastructure changes, I can put this to our technical department.
