Re: Massive table bloat

On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 12:48 PM, Steve Crawford <
scrawford(at)pinpointresearch(dot)com> wrote:

> On 12/11/2012 11:41 AM, Michael Sawyers wrote:
>
>> Political reasons have ruled out the dump and reload options, but
>> restoring
>> the entire database took several hours. I'm also restricted on version
>> because newer versions of postgres are not supported with that specific
>> product, including maintenance updates.
>>
>
> You may want to gently suggest that the powers-that-be start at
> http://www.postgresql.org/**docs/8.4/static/release-8-4-**15.html<http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/release-8-4-15.html>and work their way back to
> http://www.postgresql.org/**docs/8.4/static/release-8-4-2.**html<http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/release-8-4-2.html>compiling a complete list of data-corrupting, query-wrecking or
> security-damaging issues that have been corrected in the over three years
> since 8.4.1 was released.
>
> They may also want to look at http://www.postgresql.org/**
> support/versioning/ <http://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/> -
> particularly the statement, "The community considers not upgrading to be
> riskier than upgrading."
>
> Ultimately it is their responsibility to make the decision whether or not
> to upgrade. It is your responsibility to provide the data necessary to help
> them make an informed choice.
>

Often the reason for these technoligically stupid policies is third-party
software, where vendor X says, "we only support Postgres 8.3.2, using
anything else voids our service agreement." If that's the problem here,
then ask vendor X if they're willing to take responsibility for the
potential data corruption that their policy will cause. Vendors that work
with Postgres need to understand that "minor releases" won't break their
applications, and that they should encourage their customers to keep their
Postgres software up to date.

If, on the other hand, this is your company's internal policies, then pass
Steve's message along in with a strongly worded admonition that they pay
attention.

Craig James

>
> Cheers,
> Steve
>
>
>
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