Windows updates are inevitable, and can cause our store to be unavailable for a few minutes or up to 10 depending on what hole MS is plugging up.  I'd like us to never be down, but how do others do it?

Anyone have experience with this?

 

We actually have our system setup on 3 webservers.  We then use a load balancer to direct traffic.  Using the SQL we have it setup in a publisher subscriber model with realtime updates.  The subscriber db gets backedup every night.  We use WSUS to do manual updates to the webserver where we will take one offline, do the updates, bring it back online in dev mode and run any test required.  Then we will update the second one and add this to the first one and allow to go live.  We restrict 1&2 to say 25% of the traffic to ensure no issues.  If all well we then direct all thraffic to 1&2 and place 3 on hold for 2 weeks just incase we need to roll out.  If not 3 gets upgraded and joins the group.  This also allows us to test any new PC release. The big issue we had initially with all of this was the session state.  Had to make a couple of tweaks in IIS but other than that it works great

What load balancer do you recommend to direct traffic?  That's really interesting, thanks.