Database Schema Migrations with Zero Downtime
summary
Claims practical, repeatable ways to migrate schemas without downtime: use expand-contract pattern and feature toggles to read/write both columns while rolling code, run migrations on replicas and failover to avoid pauses, or stream updates through a queue/CQRS to catch up later. Covers tools like Doctrine, Flyway and Percona Online Schema Change (shadow table + triggers) and real-world scale—supporting 50+ deployments per day—and argues rollbacks are usually impractical.
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chapters (20)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:00Database schema migrations
- 6:30Why rollbacks are bad
- 11:45Zero downtime deployments
- 16:00Backwards compatibility
- 16:35Rename
- 18:35Challenges
- 19:05Columns
- 20:15Feature Toggle
- 22:05Test Migrations
- 22:30Fake Data
- 24:15No Schema Land
- 24:35Migration during reads
- 25:50Migration housekeeping
- 26:20Large data sets
- 27:55Failover
- 29:50Kafka
- 31:15CQRS
- 33:40Migration tools
- 36:00Recap
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