From: Jerry Sievers <gsievers19@comcast.net>
To: Kiriakos Georgiou <kg.postgresql@olympiakos.com>
Cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: is it cool to restart servers as preventive maintenance?
References: <F83C2392-27AD-41D5-9FCE-4C4A2321A2CA@olympiakos.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 13:46:35 -0600
In-Reply-To: <F83C2392-27AD-41D5-9FCE-4C4A2321A2CA@olympiakos.com> (Kiriakos
 Georgiou's message of "Wed, 10 Feb 2016 14:10:19 -0500")
Message-ID: <868u2sxs9w.fsf@jerry.enova.com>
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Kiriakos Georgiou <kg.postgresql@olympiakos.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Is it accepted practice to restart a production database on a regular basis (e.g.: once a month) ?
>
> In the last 12 months I have noticed 3-4 instances of database
> flakiness that is cured by restarting.  I’ve been using
> PostgreSQL since 2007 and I haven’t seen such issues
> requiring a reboot, but on my current project we do some rather heavy
> duty PostGIS analysis that apparently stresses the system enough to
> occasionally cause this (that’s my theory anyway.)
> I’m beginning to seriously consider restarting servers on a
> monthly basis.

I once took a new DBA position and found them doing a weekly full
restart and clustering several large table.

This went on for a short while until I brought to their attention that
the only problem was  long-open transactions :-)

We put in a fix for that problem...

Thus rather than taking production down every Friday night, we went out
partying instead.

Unsophisticated/brute force approach and nobody wins.

YMMV

> regards,
> Kiriakos Georgiou

-- 
Jerry Sievers
Postgres DBA/Development Consulting
e: postgres.consulting@comcast.net
p: 312.241.7800


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