How to Reduce Downtime When Upgrading Magento

Can you imagine being a Shopaholic person who loves to buy jewellery and clothes every week, and you are typing the online store name on Google to land on the website but as you landed you notice a message that says – our shop is unexpectedly closed, please visit us later. You will surely feel frustrated right, this is what happens with your customers when your website is in downtime zone while you perform any Magento upgrade services which ultimately results in losing your customers and directing them to your competitors.

Any changes you have made for upgrading to Magento 2 are needed and have advantages in the long run but ultimately how it is done, and problems come in this process are also part of the show.

For instance while upgrading to the latest Magento version due to some errors your website becomes inaccessible to customers; however, it can be restored by uptime features. But still, avoiding is a must so none of your customers feel the need to visit other sites. And via this blog, we are going to brief how to reduce such downtime challenges and take advantage of .

What Is Zero Downtime Deployment?

Firstly, understand ecommerce downtime which occurs when an ecommerce website is inaccessible or not functioning well enough for customers to use it, resulting in lost customers and sales. Moreover, this downtime is divided in two categories – soft downtime ( issues with your online store that impact customer experience, leading to a loss in sales) and hard downtime (you need to worry about this the least). Now here, what the role of zero downtime.

Zero downtime deployment is considered as a software deployment strategy in which you can update your website or app like upgrading to latest Magento version without anyone noticing a thing. Your users keep clicking around, checking out, and doing whatever they need to do – no hiccups, no errors, no slowdowns. From their point of view, nothing changes, even while you’re rolling out big updates behind the scenes.

This approach matters most for things like e-commerce. Even a few seconds offline can lose you sales, send carts tumbling, and chip away at trust.

8 Critical Updates Or Changes For Zero Downtime Deployment Without Disrupting Customers

1. HW – Infrastructure Updates (Hardware / Software)

Think of this as upgrading the engine room. You might swap out servers, beef up your storage, improve networking gear, or add more cloud power (CPU, memory, storage). You can even update your virtualization tools or container platforms. With zero downtime, you do all this in the background redirecting traffic as needed so nobody’s impacted.

2. OS – System Updates (Operating System Upgrades)

OS are mostly required for security systems’ performance and stability. Via this you can update libraries or dependencies too. Zero downtime deployment lets you handle all of that without taking everything offline usually by updating servers one by one or smoothly switching traffic.

3. APP – Application Updates (Code-Based Updates)

These types of updates involve releasing new features, enhancing the user interface or checkout flow, speeding up the site using different tweaks and fixing logic or functionality issue. To work on this more easily, the new application version is built and tested in isolation. Only when it’s fully verified does the system switch users over. Until that moment, customers continue using the current version with no interruptions or errors.

4. SEC – Security Updates (Security Upgrades)

Security is non-negotiable especially in time when hackers are actively looking for ecommerce stores with less security features, plus security updates protect both your business and your customers, regardless of which task you are performing by patching known vulnerabilities, updating encryption methods, strengthening authentication and authorization, and improving data protection and compliance measures..

5. CFG – Settings Updates (Configuration Changes)

Blue/Green Deployment, Configuration as Code (CaC) & Spring Cloud Config, Atomic Deployments (Git/Composer), and Atomic Deployments (Git/Composer) are all part of configuration changes to apply settings changes without interrupting live users, often using parallel environments, database read-only modes, or clever traffic switching to seamlessly transition from old to new configurations.

6. FIX – Bug Fixes (Technical Fixes)

With zero downtime deployment, fixes are rolled out seamlessly as bugs can easily affect the performance of a website. These technical fixes include resolving checkout or payment issues, fixing broken pages or integrations, so in case any changes are going on the site, users still can easily interact with the site as no maintenance window is required.

7. DB – Data Updates (Database Migration)

Updating the database is tricky, changing table structures, migrating data, adding indexes. Zero downtime deployment carefully coordinates these changes so the old and new versions work together, and there’s no data mess or user disruption.

8. SRV – Platform Updates (Server Migration)

Platform or server updates involve moving your application to a new environment which includes migrating to new servers, changing infrastructure architecture, switching cloud providers, and upgrading hosting platforms. Here, zero downtime deployment handles the traffic behind the scenes, rerouting users so nobody ever notices you moved a thing.

How to Achieve Zero Downtime Deployment for Magento

Magento 1 vs Magento 2 Deployment

Magento 1 was pretty forgiving. Developers could just pull the latest code, flush the cache, and boom, the new features were live. There was no need to run tricky commands like `setup:upgrade` or generate static content. Most of the time, customers never even noticed anything changed.

Magento 2 is a different beast. It leans on Composer for dependencies, and it requires steps like code compilation, database upgrades, and static file generation. Those steps can drag the site into maintenance mode. If you don’t plan things out, your visitors can get locked out or deal with a sluggish site.

That’s why a real zero downtime deployment strategy isn’t optional anymore for Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce. Here are three solid ways to pull it off.

1. Blue-Green Deployment Strategy

What Is Blue-Green Deployment?

Blue-green deployment is considered one of the best and proven deployment strategies which is designed to completely minimize or eliminate downtime at the time of upgrading to the latest Magento version which is done through keeping 2 identical production environments which means you have two copies of your production environment – one called Blue, one called Green.

– Blue is what everyone’s using right now.

– Green is where you put your new changes and kick the tires.

Only one of these serves your users at a time. If Blue is live, Green waits in the wings while you deploy and test your updates.

Where Blue-Green Deployment Gets Tricky

– If users are in the middle of something like checking out, a switch might disconnect them.

– Both environments usually share the same database, which can lead to headaches if you’ve changed the database schema.

– If your updates break compatibility with the old version, rolling back gets messy.

– You need double the infrastructure, which means higher costs.

2. Zero Downtime Deployment for Adobe Commerce (Cloud)

Whenever you try to upgrade to the latest version of Magento or other big integrations, adobe Commerce Cloud will use its own deployment pipeline: build, deploy, and post-deploy in which the platform puts your site in maintenance mode during the deploy step which will ultimately result in noticeable downtime, especially if your site is big or you’re rolling out a lot of changes.

But with the right setup, you can pretty much dodge downtime altogether.

Step 1: Upgrade the `ece-tools` Package

`ece-tools` controls how deployments work on Adobe Commerce Cloud. It comes with scripts and settings to help you build and launch Magento projects smoothly. Even its latest version has more features specifically built for zero-downtime, also ensure to run `ece-tools` version 2002.0.13 or higher.

Step 2: Move Static Content Deployment to the Build Phase

Static content deployment (SCD) can really slow things down. If it fails during the deploy phase, your store can get stuck in maintenance mode.

Here’s how to avoid that:

– Push SCD to the build phase, not deploy.

– Turn on HTML minification to make static files smaller and the site faster.

– If something fails in the build phase, your live site stays safe, no downtime.

Step 3: Set Up the Post-Deploy Hook

Adobe Commerce Cloud lets you run shell commands at different points during deployment. Usually, cache cleaning happens when your site’s in maintenance mode. But if you move cache cleaning to the post-deploy phase, the cache sticks around while you deploy. That means your site stays up and running right until you’re ready to finish the rollout.

You can also use the WARM_UP_PAGES variable to load important pages ahead of time. This way, visitors get fast page loads right after deployment.

Step 4: Cut Down Theme Files

Big themes packed with unused files can really drag down static content deployment. Go in and clear out anything you don’t need. If you set the SCD_MATRIX environment variable, you can tell Magento to only generate static content for the locales and themes you actually use. Less clutter, faster builds, quicker deployments.

Step 5: Make Static Content Deployment Faster

Using the fifth step process you don’t feel the need to generate static content one piece at a time. Crank up the SCD_THREADS variable to add more threads. With more threads, Magento can build out static assets much faster, which is a lifesaver for stores running multiple languages or themes.

3. Using MGT Code Deploy

MGT Code Deploy gives you zero downtime deployments built for Magento. Here’s what makes it stand out:

– It does in-place deployments, so your site keeps serving customers while the code gets updated.

– A message queue system lets deployment tasks run in parallel, so things move faster and stay reliable.

– The whole thing’s built for high-performance Magento on AWS.

– You can release new features quickly without disrupting shoppers.

Git Integration

MGT Code Deploy fits right into Git-based workflows – whether you use private GitHub repos, GitLab, Bitbucket, or your own hosted Git. It’s flexible, so teams can use modern CI/CD pipelines and still get zero downtime deployments.

The Bottom Line

There is no doubt that downtime is no longer an unavoidable side effect of progress, however with the right strategy, tools, and planning, businesses can roll out critical updates so that customers can still visit their site and purchase the desired products so they don’t lose the sale while keeping their stores fully operational.

Beside this, we just want to say, whether you rely on a Blue-Green deployment strategy, optimize Adobe Commerce Cloud deployments, or use advanced tools like MGT Code Deploy, the goal remains the same that is let the customer shop in any condition, however we understand that it is not that easy as it requires proper technical knowhow of a ecommerce store in which Rock Technolabs expert Magento upgrade service providers can help.