Today, I finally implemented and deployed (on the new server only) a big improvement that's been planned for a long time. There are now two instances of the database. Both are updated during the site update process, but the site switches to use the "copy" version while the main version is being updated, then switches back to main when the copy is being updated. This means no more annoying SQL error messages on the site during updates. I won't mind running more frequent updates with this new behavior and it's a big step toward site updates running automatically, say every few hours or even any time changes are made to the highway data and user data.