"This distinction played a crucial role in our upgrade planning and execution strategy."
"Navigating Challenges in the MySQL Upgrade Journey"
"Finally, minimizing manual intervention during the upgrade process was crucial."
Whilst it may smell of ChatGPT/Claude, I think the answer is actually simpler.
Look at the authors of the blog, search LinkedIn. They are all based in India, mostly Bangalore.
It is therefore more likely to be Indian English.
To be absolutely clear, for absolute avoidance of doubt:
This is NOT intended a racist comment. Indians clearly speak English fluently. But the style and flow of English is different. Just like it is for US English, Australian English or any other English. I am not remotely saying one English is better than another !
If, like me, you have spent many hours on the phone to Bangalore call-centres, you will recognise many of the stylistic patterns present in the blog text.
In a like vein when Australians say "goodeye" they usually aren't talking about your vision.
Or perhaps it was meant to specify that they, themselves, might have been presumed to be an outlier who would think it was a good idea, but who has in fact come to think that is a bad idea.
Examples of this kind of counter-presumptive use of the word "even":
1: On animals and the weather: "It was so cold that even polar bears were suffering from frostbite and frozen digits."
2: On politics, where one's general stance is well-known and who who might be rationally presumed to be a supporter of a particular thing: "Even I think that this issue is a total non-starter."
Even if they may have meant something else, that doesn't mean that they didn't intend for the words to be taken non-literally.
Another common phrase in Indian English is "do the needful," which is a delightful formulation. Grammarly has a plausible description of how it arose. [0]