On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 7:25 PM, Phoenix Kiula <phoenix.kiula@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > If you're going to run slony, then the pg_dump|pg_restore step is
>> > completely wasted. Slony will restore all the data again. You do
>> > need to run pg_dump -s, of course.
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> Thanks to everyone who replied. We have no experience with this
> "Slony". Any simple instructions on installing it and getting it
> working?
>
> Why is PG so complex! It's a such a lovely database. If only at least
> the installation and upgrade could be made more humane..
Any database that has real ACID guarantees is going to be complex.
Some more than others. I think that upgrading postgresql in place is
a LOT of work and not the highest priority, and slony lets you upgrade
LIVE. Note that you cannot upgrade an Oracle installation from 9g to
10i live. You take it offline from the app, migrate your data, and
start up the new database.
Slony replication lets postgresql accomplish this, which is really
quite impressive. We just upgraded from an 8.1 server to an 8.3
server via slony, and it went smooth as silk. db downtime was
measured in seconds.