Its a pretty special app that can't handle a few seconds of downtime. The first thing I would do is be very certain this is a requirement. I thought it was a

Its a pretty special app that can't handle a few seconds of downtime. The first thing I would do is be very certain this is a requirement. I thought it was a requirement for a couple of webapps I manage and I now think otherwise. I have scripts for starting and stopping various server processes and have other scripts that pull them together to do full deploy like what you are talking about. I could optimize it, but after doing it this way for a bit I realized I feel safer by keeping it simple. I'm fairly certain I've never had a quality of service problem with my users.