Database Release
The database release phase is the first “primary” phase. It usually starts on a schedule, maybe 2 PM on a Wednesday or maybe “every day at 9 AM, 1 PM, 6 PM, and 10 PM” for more mature shops. Depending upon how much of an effect our release process normally has on end users, we might alert them that we expect to see a degradation in services starting at this point.This phase of the release has us push out our database changes. This can involve creating or altering database objects but will not involve dropping existing objects.
Our database changes should support the blue-green deployment model. At this point in the process, all of the application code is “blue”—that is, the current production code. Our procedure changes need to be able to support that code without breaking. If we need to drop a column from a stored procedure, for example, we would not want to do it here. If we need to add a column to a stored procedure, we might do it here as long as it doesn’t break the calling code.
This is two topics smashed together into one post, but gives you an idea of a mental model around database deployments.