Jodi Kanter <jkanter@virginia.edu> writes:
> We are still running 7.1.3. Can anyone highlight the big differences or rea=
> sons to upgrade? Is there some documentation on this?
The release notes always mention the main improvements. Quoting from
http://www.ca.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/7.2/postgres/release.html:
Major changes in this release:
VACUUM
Vacuuming no longer locks tables, thus allowing normal user access during the vacuum. A new VACUUM FULL
command does old-style vacuum by locking the table and shrinking the on-disk copy of the table.
Transactions
There is no longer a problem with installations that exceed four billion transactions.
OID's
OID's are now optional. Users can now create tables without OID's for cases where OID usage is excessive.
Optimizer
The system now computes histogram column statistics during ANALYZE, allowing much better optimizer choices.
Security
A new MD5 encryption option allows more secure storage and transfer of passwords. A new Unix-domain socket
authentication option is available on Linux and BSD systems.
Statistics
Administrators can use the new table access statistics module to get fine-grained information about table and
index usage.
Internationalization
Program and library messages can now be displayed in several languages.
regards, tom lane