Hello,

I am trying to automate deployment/rollback of new versions of our Web Based application at work. This is what I have in mind:

• Create a backup of our app on production
• Do an SVN Export from our local server
• Stop apache and then mysql on production
• Execute MySQL changes on production
• Rsync to our prodcution server
• Restart MySQl and then Apache on production.

Rollback is something similar (Exporting the previous tag from SVn, Rsyncing and executing SQL Rollback queries)

I am also automating the whole thing (except for starting/stopping Apache) using PHING.

I am concerned about the minute or two downtime while we release the new version of the app. And, I have been thinking about the process of Deploying web apps for a while now and have been reading about it online and I am wanting to know more about this topic.

Please share with us your experiences/best practices followed while deploying a Web App.

Pl

There's no reason to stop apache/mysql on prod.

If you have database migrations, you should be able to run them live, prior to pushing your code.

What i've done, is simply set the doc root on apache to a sym link, ie:

/builds/current

and then have folder:

/builds/releases/

each release goes into it's own folder there.

Have the deploy script move all of the files over, chagne the symlink to point to the new release number, and then restart apache.

No downtime.


I've used this method, and continue to use this method, on projects that receive millions of unique users a month, all of it swapping on the fly.

Only rarely is there ever a need to bring the application down for DB migrations. If replication falls behind by 10, 15 minutes, it's nothing major.

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