Is it possible to have a staging site and a live site at the same time?

[rtnashinc]

I want to install a new extension for my Magento site and the company wants me to create a staging site so they can install it and test it, but I don't want to shut down my live site in the mean time.  Is this possible, and if so how?

[alexpds]

Hi!
Yes you can have a staging for test purposes while the live site remains Live and taking orders.
I always keep one or two clones for new features development, testing plugins, redesigns, etc.
The process of creating a clone for dev or staging is a bit hard to explain here (writing on mobile sorry).
Some hostings have an automated process of cloning Magento.
If that's not available you'll need to do it manually.
What I usually do is zip all the files, export the database, then import the database to the staging server, unzip the files, change database info on app/etc/local.xml, clear the cache and sessions, check permissions, update the base_url on core_config_data table and that should do it.
This is for Magento v1.x

[rtnashinc]

Thank you for your response. I will check with my hosing company.

[Gopal Kacha]

You are asking this question means you are late. 

Please always keep practice to live site and dev site parallel so that any strange issue avoided.