Re: tablespaces a priority for 7.5?

"John Sidney-Woollett" <johnsw(at)wardbrook(dot)com> writes:
> With Oracle you have the option of EITHER exporting the database
> (equivalent to doing pg_dump) OR taking the database offline and carrying
> out a file system level copy of the database files.

The planned PITR feature would not require you to take anything offline.
The whole concept of an "offline" database is an Oracle-ism that I see
no value in emulating.

> One caveat for Oracle (at least in 8.1.x) is that DDL statements are not
> recorded in the archive logs, and can screw things up. Best to take a new
> export/dump after making DDL changes!

Well, we're ahead of them on that...

> The difference between Oracle and Postgres appears to be that posgres
> requires a file system level copy of the database instead of being able to
> make use of a dump file for this type of recovery. Is that correct?

I dunno what a "dump file" would equate to in Postgres terms, but yeah,
we're envisioning using ordinary filesystem tools (tar, say) as the
mechanism for handling a baseline backup.

regards, tom lane