Zero-Downtime Schema Migrations With Expand-Contract
Big-bang schema changes cause outages. The expand-contract pattern lets you evolve a live database in a controlled series of safe, reversible steps.
Growth & Migration
Why I Migrated From Jenkins to GitHub Actions (and What I Kept On Jenkins)
A hands-on account of moving pipelines off self-hosted Jenkins to GitHub Actions, with the honest trade-offs and the builds I deliberately kept on Jenkins.
Why I Used Logical Replication Instead of pg_upgrade for a Near-Zero-Downtime Major Upgrade
pg_upgrade is fast but needs the database stopped. For a service that could not stop, I built PostgreSQL 17 as a logical-replication subscriber and flipped traffic.
Migrating Legacy Cron Jobs to systemd Timers Without Losing Any
A methodical cron-to-systemd-timer migration on Ubuntu 24.04: map crontab fields to OnCalendar, handle @reboot and per-user jobs, and verify parity before disabling cron.
Writing a Production Cutover Runbook That Survives the Night
A minute-by-minute cutover runbook template with named owners, a point-of-no-return gate, curl and psql smoke tests, and a rollback you rehearse rather than hope for.
SAP ECC to S/4HANA: Automating Custom-Code Remediation Analysis
The real risk in an SAP ECC-to-S/4HANA migration hides in years of custom Z-code. Automated scans and usage data let you size the remediation with evidence before the 2027 maintenance cliff.
Don’t forget you are out of extensions on Server 2012 — there is no year four
Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 end on 13 October 2026. Three years was the whole runway — there is no year four to buy. Find your last box before the date, not after it.
Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 In-Place with do-release-upgrade
An in-place Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 upgrade works, but only if you prep: snapshot first, disable third-party PPAs, handle the config prompts deliberately, and keep a tested way back.
PostgreSQL 15 to 17 Major Upgrade with pg_upgrade
A rehearsed in-place PostgreSQL 15 to 17 upgrade with pg_upgrade –link: pre-flight checks, matching extensions, statistics rebuild and a tested rollback.
This Fixes: pg_upgrade ‘could not load library’ Extension Mismatch
pg_upgrade aborts with ‘could not load library’ when an extension has no matching binary in the new cluster. Install the target-version contrib and PostGIS packages, re-check, then upgrade.