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Plan a major database version upgrade

TuroSoftware Engineer · Technical Screen
MediumSoftware EngineerTechnical ScreenSystem Design

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This question evaluates competency in database upgrade planning, including data migration strategies, cutover coordination, compatibility considerations, change-data-capture versus dual-write trade-offs, and rollback and risk management.

You have an application tier (API/web servers) talking to a primary database for writes and a secondary/replica database for reads. You need to perform a major DB version upgrade (e.g., v13 → v15).

Design an upgrade plan that addresses:

  • Downtime vs near-zero-downtime approaches
  • Data migration strategy (in-place vs new cluster)
  • Cutover strategy (how to switch reads/writes)
  • Whether to use dual-write or change-data-capture
  • Compatibility concerns (SQL/features/drivers)
  • Rollback plan
  • Trade-offs: cost, consistency, risk, and impact to the business