Migrate a dynamic 5.x site to 6.x with Drush

We know all the "drill" of migrating a site:

• Put your site on maintenance.
• Backup your database and code
• Disable all your modules (do this with 50+ modules)
• Update your core and modules code
• run update.php
• check for errors in update screen
• activate a module
• run update.php
• check for errors in update screen
• repeat last 3 actions until you have migrated all modules

And then we are not talking about migrating buddylist to friendlist or views 1.x to views 2.x.

So you need to test this procedure in a safe environment over and over again. Test for errors in the update log, migrate the views and export them in code so you can import them in the migrated database.

With the help of drush we can automate and optimize this process. It makes it possible to migrate the site on the "moment supreme" with a minimum of downtime of our dynamic (read social) site.