US Patent 11494179 Software update on legacy system without application disruption

Methods and apparatus are disclosed to update software on a legacy system without disruption of live applications. In a database server environment, a nameserver restart can utilize a pre-existing hook facility to detect a newly introduced script and execute an initialization function of the script, leading to activation or launch of the script. In a use case of a high availability database server, the script can cause a copy of a replication status to be stored at a remote location. Upon failure of the database server, retrieval and verification of the replication status from the remote location enables failover to a replica server to be performed safely and automatically.