In preparation for the move to your upgraded environment, we typically implement a content freeze window of two days around go-live. During this content freeze, no new content or changes to existing content can be published on Sitecore.
The content freeze usually begins the day before go-live and remains in effect until after the cutover to the new, upgraded environment.
You can typically resume normal content publishing immediately after go-live once our testing and monitoring has verified the new environment is ready to use. We do not expect any downtime to your websites during this freeze or cutover.
What environments are impacted?
Only the Prod environment is impacted. Any non prod content is out of scope for Dataweavers, with customers managing deployment of that themselves post-go-live.
What happens to code that hasn't been released to Production before the content freeze starts?
When merging with the upgraded code, make sure all the changes are conforming to the upgrade in terms of nuget packages and any convention updates. There is minimal risk as the code would go through non prod environments for testing.
Please note it is out of scope for Dataweavers to assist with doing the merge or the upgrade of this unreleased code, but we can answer questions via your sync meetings or the support desk.
What happens if we need to do an urgent or critical content update during the content freeze?
In this case, your development team will need to track and duplicate any urgent or critical content changes into the new environment once it is operational.
Are there any other limitations we should consider?
We ask you to give us notice of any major features that are being released before go-live so we can plan the content freeze and go-live around them.
Are there any circumstances where we don't have to do a content freeze?
If you are happy with making all changes in both environments, a content freeze isn't required.
Related articles: