Code for off-site Maintenance?

Soon, I will be transferring my site to go on-line with my IP. Since I've never managed anything off-site, I have a very fundamental question: What are the usual procedures with respect to maintaining a site, that is, accessing the PostgreSQL database for corrections, deletions, etc? One idea that occured to me: mirror the site here, complete with database, and modify stuff at this end, then upload to the IP. Or should I create some form of management code that would allow me, using php, to access and modify the stuff on-line. I've looked at Zope, Midguard, and another one, but they seem like over-kill (and I would have to change a lot of my code to use them). I would appreciate any input pointing how I should proceed -- I'm a total newbie in this area. Any pointers, or where to look, would be greatly appreciated. Tia, Andre