I have the opportunity to work with a variety of customers on their database systems, often with the focus on how they can build and deploy changes to their databases. Often, they have a process around how and when they make changes. Some have maintenance windows, though often these are approved times for changes rather than a true window during which a system is shut down.

I ran into a customer recently who scheduled a system shutdown for their deployments. This was a surprise to me in 2026, as I thought most people would have learned to deploy changes to live systems. However, I know that many teams make changes that would render portions of the database inaccessible for a period of time, so maybe that's not true. Maybe they just make changes and deal with the impact on clients.

I wanted to ask this question today: Do you shut down your system completely for a deployment? Not all systems, but the one you're patching and possibly a few related ones, while preventing client access?

Or do you have to make changes while the system is still in use?

A lot of DevOps analogies revolve around the idea of cars and performing maintenance or improving them. One that I like is learning to replace all the parts of the car while it's still running and in use. That can be hard in the real world, but we can often find ways to do this in software, including with databases. A little creativity can go a long way.

I love watching the evolution of Formula 1 Pit Stops as a way of visualizing the problem. This video is kind of amazing, but it shows the power of thinking about a problem and finding ways to improve it. In the 50s, pit stops could take 45-60 seconds or longer. If you look at the video, in 1990, they dropped this to less than 9 seconds. That seems amazing, but the power of continuous improvement shows this dropping to 7s in 2000. In 2010, 4 seconds. Then in 2020, 1.82 seconds for 4 tires changed.

This is still a full shutdown, albeit a few short one.

I constantly deal with people who think that they cannot find a way to make deployments easier, faster, or less impactful. I know that car racing teams used to feel that way about their pit stops. Once they tried to creatively work on their challenges, they found solutions that are truly amazing. Using new ideas and tools, they reached speeds no one could have imagined a decade ago.

I bet many of you can do the same thing to your databases with an open mind and a little tooling.