Whenever we are going to do a deployment process, some fundamental steps are necessary to ensure the success of the implementation.
One such process is the Content Freeze.
The Content Freeze consist in limit the period of time where the content authors can no longer perform changes on the CMS.
So, in order to implement that practice in your organization here are a few steps
- Inform all the stakeholders and users the period that they must perform their last change on CMS with some days in advanced
- Schedule the backup of the databases with your IT in advance so they will be able to perform the backup of those databases just after the Content Freeze started
- Perform the deployment
Some people may not take the content freeze seriously, so explicitly inform the risks that this may occur, such as a “Publish” may break a page, or in a case of rollback, the content will be void
Another option that you will have in the near future will be to lock all users at once, I am working on a Sitecore module that will soon be in “Sitecore MarketPlace, I will post the link as soon as it gets published.
OCT/27 : The Module was published, you can access through this link
https://marketplace.sitecore.net/Modules/M/Maintenance_Mode.aspx
Sitecore Tips 