This explanation sounds a bit amateur to me. In a well planned transition you have to account for a rollback and a rollforward with info entered during the havoc. Sql server has that, its called the transaction log.

 I really don't want to be sarcastic or snub, but truly, we the lonely programmers look up to you guys, the Microsoft super team, and you not applying your own technologies appropiately is very disappointing.

I still appreciate the sincerity, and it takes guts to come out and admit something like that. I'd probably told my boss that the gremlings attacked us.