P1

I have a WordPress site on AWS. I want to keep it updated, but it's production. I'm not about to throw new plug-ins at it. I do that in development. But, how does one update from dev to production? I will keep the site files in git and use a master repo to track changes. That’s not the complicated part, the database of the production system is.

I'm going to add new features in the dev environment, which will change the database. I can snap a copy of the production database and work off that in dev. But, once I've add my new features, I would like to apply that to the newer production DB. Stumped! The DB I have in dev is out of date. The DB in production doesn't have the new features I've just hacked up. How is this dealt with for production sites?

P2:

Here is the process I believe is required:

• Copy the DB from production to dev.
• Begin enhancements, and/or bug fixes.
• Test.
• Release - extra work is needed here:
  • Freeze the production DB for as short a period as possible (i.e. seconds)
  • Copy the production DB to staging.
  • Merge changes from the Dev DB into staging.
  • OPT: It might make sense to do a sanity test here.
  • Copy the staging DB to production.
  • Unfreeze the production DB.
• NOTE: this assumes the code is also released to production.
• Finally, runs some test on the new production system.

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