Re: Remove recommendation for nightly VACUUM

On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 8:31 AM Laurenz Albe <laurenz(dot)albe(at)cybertec(dot)at>
wrote:

> A customer recently pointed me to
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-vacuum.html
> and asked if I agree with the statement there that a nightly
> scheduled VACUUM were a good idea:
>
> "We recommend that active production databases be vacuumed frequently
> (at least nightly), in order to remove dead rows. After adding or
> deleting a large number of rows, it might be a good idea to issue a
> VACUUM ANALYZE command for the affected table. This will update the
> system catalogs with the results of all recent changes, and allow the
> PostgreSQL query planner to make better choices in planning queries."
>
> Looking at the Git history, most of that paragraph is from a time
> when autovacuum did not yet exist or was much less reliable than it
> is now. So I suggest removing all that and pointing to autovacuum
> instead, as done in the attached patch.
>

Agred. A nightly vacuum is definitely not something for "most people"
anymore.

But also. "active production databases". Surely we recommend regular vacuum
in *all* databases when it's primarily driven by autovacuum? At least all
active. But there's nothing special about "production"? Since we're
tweaking the wording, I would suggest removing that reference as well.

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: https://www.hagander.net/ <http://www.hagander.net/>
Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/ <http://www.redpill-linpro.com/>