Modernizing Rails Data and Storage with a Reversible Cutover

A Rails platform needed a coordinated PostgreSQL, object-storage, backup, and operating-system modernization before a high-risk production release. I was the primary executor for the staging rehearsal, production-data restore, PostgreSQL upgrades, storage cutover, backup verification, and production release.

I rehearsed database and storage changes against restored production data, kept explicit rollback paths, introduced mirrored storage before switching the application to S3-compatible object storage, and verified the result through the running application rather than relying only on infrastructure-level checks.

The production work included a PostgreSQL 16-to-18 upgrade and migration of 2,709 Active Storage files totaling approximately 1.2 GB. The cutover completed with under one hour of customer-visible downtime and no known migration failure. Environment-specific storage buckets became the isolation boundary, and operational runbooks were aligned with the new design.