Database Migrations Best Practices: Zero-Downtime Deployments
August 8, 202411 min readBy VIBEBUFF Team
DatabaseMigrationsDevOpsDeployment
Deploy database changes without downtime. Migration strategies and rollback plans.
Zero-Downtime Migrations
Deploy database changes safely without affecting users.
Strategies
- Expand-Contract: Add new, migrate, remove old
- Shadow Tables: Write to both during migration
- Feature Flags: Control rollout
Best Practices
- Always have rollback plan
- Test migrations on production-like data
- Use transactions where possible
- Monitor during deployment
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