Re: Migrate postgres to newer hardware

Szymon,

We had Slony running previously, but it lagged behind so badly that never managed to catch up.

Hardware
AMD 1.8GHz 32 Bits
8GB RAM DDR1
300GB Disk single volume

Database:
Postgres 8.2.24
160GB in size
There are thousands of tables, apparently for each new device a new table is created.

The DB grows around 1GB every 2 days.

Do you still think slony would work?

Thank you very much

Renato

Renato Oliveira
Systems Administrator
e-mail: renato(dot)oliveira(at)grant(dot)co(dot)uk

Tel: +44 (0)1763 260811
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From: Szymon Guz [mailto:mabewlun(at)gmail(dot)com]
Sent: 30 March 2010 12:29
To: Renato Oliveira
Cc: pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Migrate postgres to newer hardware

2010/3/30 Renato Oliveira <renato(dot)oliveira(at)grant(dot)co(dot)uk<mailto:renato(dot)oliveira(at)grant(dot)co(dot)uk>>
Dear All,
What would be the easiest and fastest way to migrate Postgres 8.2.24 32 BIT to a new server 64 Bit.
The existing server runs on 32 bit architecture and has a database as big as 160GB.
We initially thought of using PITR, but as one of the PITR requirements is both machines need to be similar.
This similarity needs to be even in architecture? I think I read something which says “Yes”.
If we cannot use PITR what would be the best approach, we can’t have down time I am afraid.
Any ideas or suggestions would be very welcome.

I'd use Slony as a replication tool so the data would be copied to the new serwer while the old still works. After initial copy Slony will copy changes made during making the copy. Later (when the replication lag is small) it should be enough to stop application, reconfigure it for the new database, get rid of replication so the new slave database will restore all triggers and then start the application for using the new database.
Slony uses pure SQL for copying the data so there is no problem with the differences in the hardware.

regards
Szymon Guz

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