On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 12:48 PM, Steve Crawford
<scrawford@pinpointresearch.com> wrote:
On 12/11/2012 11:41 AM, Michael Sawyers wrote:
Political reasons have ruled out the dump and reload options, but restoring
the entire database took several hours. I'm also restricted on version
because newer versions of postgres are not supported with that specific
product, including maintenance updates.
You may want to gently suggest that the powers-that-be start at http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/release-8-4-15.html and work their way back to http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/release-8-4-2.html compiling a complete list of data-corrupting, query-wrecking or security-damaging issues that have been corrected in the over three years since 8.4.1 was released.
They may also want to look at http://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/ - particularly the statement, "The community considers not upgrading to be riskier than upgrading."
Ultimately it is their responsibility to make the decision whether or not to upgrade. It is your responsibility to provide the data necessary to help them make an informed choice.
Often the reason for these technoligically stupid policies is third-party software, where vendor X says, "we only support Postgres 8.3.2, using anything else voids our service agreement." If that's the problem here, then ask vendor X if they're willing to take responsibility for the potential data corruption that their policy will cause. Vendors that work with Postgres need to understand that "minor releases" won't break their applications, and that they should encourage their customers to keep their Postgres software up to date.
If, on the other hand, this is your company's internal policies, then pass Steve's message along in with a strongly worded admonition that they pay attention.
Craig James
Cheers,
Steve
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