Product Roadmap question and request for recommendation

Started by Keaton Adamsabout 17 years ago7 messagesgeneral
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#1Keaton Adams
kadams@mxlogic.com

What would you do in this situation?

We are currently at PG 8.1 and are in the process of upgrading to 8.3.6. I read on your development roadmap page that 8.4 is slated for release in Q1 of this year, possibly on the 31st of March:

"The next release of PostgreSQL is planned to be the 8.4 release. A tentative schedule for this version has a release in the first quarter of 2009."

I have also read in the postings that the framework for in-place upgrades is being added to 8.4, so the actual upgrade to the forthcoming 8.5 can be done as in-place (without dump/restore), but there won't be a way to do an in-place upgrade from any 8.3.x version directly to 8.5.

Upgrading some of our larger databases is rather painful and is a several day effort (staging historical data over time so the actual cutover can realistically be done in a weekend). Right now 8.1 is working well for us, is extremely stable, and provides all of the functionality we need to support our applications. Given this, it sounds to me like it makes sense to wait a bit longer (2nd half of this year) for a 8.4.x version do to the dump/restore against for the last time so we can then, in the future, do in-place upgrades from 8.5 onward.

Any comments you can make on this suggestion would be very much appreciated.

#2Dot Yet
dot.yet@gmail.com
In reply to: Keaton Adams (#1)
Re: Product Roadmap question and request for recommendation

don't fix if it ain't broken ;)

no really, if the system is capable of working nearly flawlessly till 8.4 is
baked, then it is sound to wait till then, especially when upgrading to a
newer version is a *painful* as in time consuming task. i am assuming
downgrading (just incase things don't workout that easily) will be equally
painful.

rgds,
dotyet.

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 1:09 PM, Keaton Adams <kadams@mxlogic.com> wrote:

Show quoted text

What would you do in this situation?

We are currently at PG 8.1 and are in the process of upgrading to 8.3.6. I
read on your development roadmap page that 8.4 is slated for release in Q1
of this year, possibly on the 31st of March:

"The next release of PostgreSQL is planned to be the 8.4 release. A
tentative schedule for this version has a release in the first quarter of
2009."

I have also read in the postings that the framework for in-place upgrades
is being added to 8.4, so the actual upgrade to the forthcoming 8.5 can be
done as in-place (without dump/restore), but there won't be a way to do an
in-place upgrade from any 8.3.x version directly to 8.5.

Upgrading some of our larger databases is rather painful and is a several
day effort (staging historical data over time so the actual cutover can
realistically be done in a weekend). Right now 8.1 is working well for us,
is extremely stable, and provides all of the functionality we need to
support our applications. Given this, it sounds to me like it makes sense to
wait a bit longer (2nd half of this year) for a 8.4.x version do to the
dump/restore against for the last time so we can then, in the future, do
in-place upgrades from 8.5 onward.

Any comments you can make on this suggestion would be very much
appreciated.

#3Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Keaton Adams (#1)
Re: Product Roadmap question and request for recommendation

Keaton Adams <kadams@mxlogic.com> writes:

We are currently at PG 8.1 and are in the process of upgrading to 8.3.6. I read on your development roadmap page that 8.4 is slated for release in Q1 of this year, possibly on the 31st of March:

"The next release of PostgreSQL is planned to be the 8.4 release. A tentative schedule for this version has a release in the first quarter of 2009."

That's out of date --- there is absolutely zero chance of 8.4 being
released in March. This summer, perhaps.

regards, tom lane

#4Keaton Adams
kadams@mxlogic.com
In reply to: Tom Lane (#3)
Re: Product Roadmap question and request for recommendation

OK, well just to make sure I have the latest and greatest information on the proposed in-place upgrade process.

If we go from 8.1 to 8.3.6 now using dump/restore we will need to do another dump/restore to get to 8.4, correct?
And from 8.4 on we will be able to do in-place upgrades?
The idea of being able to do an in-place upgrade from an 8.3 release is off the table?

Thanks again,

Keaton

On 2/23/09 12:03 PM, "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Keaton Adams <kadams@mxlogic.com> writes:

We are currently at PG 8.1 and are in the process of upgrading to 8.3.6. I read on your development roadmap page that 8.4 is slated for release in Q1 of this year, possibly on the 31st of March:

"The next release of PostgreSQL is planned to be the 8.4 release. A tentative schedule for this version has a release in the first quarter of 2009."

That's out of date --- there is absolutely zero chance of 8.4 being
released in March. This summer, perhaps.

regards, tom lane

#5Andreas Kretschmer
akretschmer@spamfence.net
In reply to: Tom Lane (#3)
Re: Product Roadmap question and request for recommendation

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Keaton Adams <kadams@mxlogic.com> writes:

We are currently at PG 8.1 and are in the process of upgrading to 8.3.6. I read on your development roadmap page that 8.4 is slated for release in Q1 of this year, possibly on the 31st of March:

"The next release of PostgreSQL is planned to be the 8.4 release. A tentative schedule for this version has a release in the first quarter of 2009."

That's out of date --- there is absolutely zero chance of 8.4 being
released in March. This summer, perhaps.

:-(

Andreas
--
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unintentional side effect. (Linus Torvalds)
"If I was god, I would recompile penguin with --enable-fly." (unknown)
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#6Scott Marlowe
scott.marlowe@gmail.com
In reply to: Keaton Adams (#4)
Re: Product Roadmap question and request for recommendation

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Keaton Adams <kadams@mxlogic.com> wrote:

OK, well just to make sure I have the latest and greatest information on the
proposed in-place upgrade process.

If we go from 8.1 to 8.3.6 now using dump/restore we will need to do another
dump/restore to get to 8.4, correct?

Or you can use slony and have a few seconds of downtime during the switchover.

#7Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: Dot Yet (#2)
Re: Product Roadmap question and request for recommendation

Dot Yet wrote:

don't fix if it ain't broken ;)

no really, if the system is capable of working nearly flawlessly till 8.4 is
baked, then it is sound to wait till then, especially when upgrading to a
newer version is a *painful* as in time consuming task. i am assuming
downgrading (just incase things don't workout that easily) will be equally
painful.

Actually, pg_migratory will allow upgrades from 8.3 to 8.4 so you could
upgrade to 8.3 and upgrade to 8.4 rapidly. I am unsure if an upgrade
from 8.2 to 8.4 is possible.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +