Maintenance

These are the tasks that no one wants to perform, but that everyone will blame you for not doing whenever they are not done. Fortunately, we can automate most of these:

• Pack the database
• Rotate logs
• Back up the site
• Monitor performance

The following diagram illustrates the typical workflow associated with these tasks:

In the diagram above, you will notice three workflow states—development, deployment, and maintenance. We describe the common transitions between each of these states as follows:

1. Development to deployment: During development, a project buildout is created. Not long after that, it may be deployed to staging for testing. It is not uncommon to deploy to staging many times before deploying to production.
2. Deployment to maintenance: Eventually, after development is complete, deployment to production occurs. Once you deploy to production, proper maintenance becomes critical.
3. Maintenance to development: After some time in production (with regularly-scheduled maintenance), more development may be required to fix bugs or add new features. Eventually, the development costs may outweigh the return on investment, at which point you are approaching the end of life.

Do not take this too literally; it is just meant to provide some perspective and a glimpse into the cyclical nature of Plone site administration.