# Deploy database migration to server

**URL:** <https://travis-ci.community/t/deploy-database-migration-to-server/10466>\
**Category:** Deployment\
**Tags:** php, aws\
**Created:** [November 6, 2020, 2:29pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/deploy-database-migration-to-server/10466 "2020-11-06T14:29:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![poniatowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f14d63/32.png) [@poniatowski](https://travis-ci.community/u/poniatowski)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2020, 2:29pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/deploy-database-migration-to-server/10466/1 "2020-11-06T14:29:57Z")

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Hi,

I would like to use Travis to run database schema migration on the server (staging, production) whenever needed as part of deployment. I have actually a few staging environments on AWS. My application is written in PHP and I have already installed lib to DB migration (Phinx).

Basically, I use Travis to run unit tests. When the tests are successful then the next step which I would like to do is deploy code to server e.g. staging or production. It depends if I merged my branch into test or master etc. However, before I pushed the code to the server, I would need to tun DB migration first.

Steps:

1. Run unit tests.
2. Run DB migration (so new tables will exist on the DB before I deploy the code on the server).
3. Deploy code.
4. Happy days 🙂

I don’t want to run this task separately from my machine as it’s possible to run into a race condition with an automatically run deployment. I don’t want clients to see 500 HTTP code on my web app.

Any idea how can I do it? Should I create e.g. bash script on the servers and then just made Travis do fire that script e.g. by ssh? Or there are any other ways to do it?

Thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![native-api](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/native-api/32/430_2.png) [@native-api](https://travis-ci.community/u/native-api)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2020, 3:08pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/deploy-database-migration-to-server/10466/10 "2020-11-14T15:08:48Z")

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If you want zero downtime, you’ll need to [deploy the new version of the service (including the database) in parallel with the old one, then shut down the old one](https://spring.io/blog/2016/05/31/zero-downtime-deployment-with-a-database).

Since this process is not well-established across web technologies, check if the deployment provider or the underlying deployment technology you’re using supports a built-in DB migration step (and the version switch if you want to do that automatically, too).  
If not, you’ll need to do the migration as a custom step – [at `before_deploy:` or `after_deploy:`](https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/job-lifecycle/#the-job-lifecycle), or as part of the deployment script if you’re using [the `script` provider](https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/deployment/script/).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![poniatowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f14d63/32.png) [@poniatowski](https://travis-ci.community/u/poniatowski)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/deploy-database-migration-to-server/10466/11 "2020-11-14T15:21:22Z")

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My app runs on AWS. Any idea how can I achieve what you did explain above? ^

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![native-api](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/native-api/32/430_2.png) [@native-api](https://travis-ci.community/u/native-api)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/deploy-database-migration-to-server/10466/12 "2020-11-14T17:23:44Z")

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AFAICS, for AWS CodeDeploy, there is a way to do migration upon deployment via a Lambda in a CodePipeline:

> <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51456724/how-should-i-migrate-update-db-schema-my-db-for-my-aws-serverless-application>

> **[AWS Developer Forums: Upgrade database during CodeDeploy ...](https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=257897)**

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I don’t see any automatic way of switching. The stumbling block seems to be that whenever you have 2 databases and one of them is live, they are bound to get desynchronized as the live one is getting newer data and the one being migrated isn’t – so you’ll have to migrate that new data by hand after the switch anyway.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/aws/comments/86qgaq/zerodowntime\_rds\_migration/](https://www.reddit.com/r/aws/comments/86qgaq/zerodowntime_rds_migration/) reports to have done a zero-downtime switch with a MySQL replication setup – but I can’t see from the description how the replicated commands would adapt to the new schema 😐