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Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:50:41 +0200
From: Gabriele Bartolini <Gabriele.Bartolini@2ndQuadrant.it>
To: =?UTF-8?Q?I=C3=B1igo_Martinez_Lasala?= <imartinez@vectorsf.com>
Cc: Silvio Brandani <silvio.brandani@tech.sdb.it>,
	<pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: upgrade postgres 8.1.21 to version 8.3.6
In-Reply-To: <1279054371.13317.130.camel@deimos>
References: <4C3C322C.4050305@tech.sdb.it> <1279054371.13317.130.camel@deimos>
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Ciao Silvio,

On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:52:51 +0200, Iñigo Martinez Lasala
> You should script database migration process in order to make it faster.
> Upgrading binaries is really simple. A yum upgrade should be enough.

Yes, faster and repeatable. Something you can launch with a script that
does everything from scratch. As Iñigo was pointing out, you must pay a lot
of attention in setting up a test environment which helps you:

* simulate the migration process (and gives you accurate measures of
times)
* test the applications

As Iñigo said, on a typical usage pattern, the most likely set of errors
you will encounter are data type checks which require casting. Therefore it
becomes crucial to:

* setup the test database (preferably on a different server)
* setup test applications that interface with the new Postgres database

I assume you are using 8.3 because of RPM availability, isn't it?
Otherwise, you should think of 8.4.

Ciao,
Gabriele

-- 
 Gabriele Bartolini - 2ndQuadrant Italia
 PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
 Gabriele.Bartolini@2ndQuadrant.it - www.2ndQuadrant.it