Re: Remove Deprecated Exclusive Backup Mode

Stephen Frost wrote:
> > It will be annoying if after this removal, companies must change their
> > backup strategy by using specific postgres tools (pgbackrest, barman).
>
> You don't write your own database system using CSV files and shell
> magic, do you? I have to say that it continues to boggle my mind that
> people insist that *this* part of the system has to be able to be
> implementable using shell scripts.
>
> Folks, these are your backups we're talking about, your last resort if
> everything else goes up in flames, why do you want to risk that by
> implementing your own one-off solution, particularly when there's known
> serious issues using that interface, and you want to just use shell
> scripts to do it...?

If we didn't think that simplicity in backup has some value, why does
PostgreSQL provide pg_basebackup?

Not everybody wants to use tools like pgbackrest and barman because it
takes some effort to set them up properly. It seems that you think that
people who want something simpler are irresponsible.

Incidentally, both barman and pgbackrest stream the backup to a backup server.

I think the most important use case for the low level backup API is when
your database is so large that you want to leverage storage techniques
like snapshots for backup, because you can't or don't want to stream all
those terabytes across the network.

I'm not playing devil's advocate here to annoy you. I see the problems
with the exclusive backup, and I see how it can hurt people.
I just think that removing exclusive backup without some kind of help
like Andres sketched above will make people unhappy.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe