Backup alternatives

On Wed, 9 Oct 2002, Ed L. wrote:

I am curious to know if anyone has any viable live backup procedures other
than pg_dump/pg_dumpall when you have a continuously running server with
continuous query activity? The motivation is to find a live alternative
faster than pg_dump, which presently takes about 45 minutes on some of my
larger databases. I assume any kind of file copy backup is not workable
due to the complexities of mvcc, caching, etc.

There is an ongoing project to provide "Point in Time Recovery" (PITR for
short) which does exactly this. Basically, it stores the WAL files
sequentially off the box, and then can use them and the last backup to
rebuild your database should your main box catch on fire, burn down your
hosting center, and initiate an infopocalypse.