Subject: Re: AWS forcing PG upgrade from v9.6 a disaster
To: "Dean Gibson (DB Administrator)" <postgresql@mailpen.com>,
 pgsql-performance@lists.postgresql.org
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 <20210601041635.GQ2082@telsasoft.com>
 <a38c45cf-3bbd-b43a-0f8a-11539c1c6dc1@mailpen.com>
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From: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
Message-ID: <18f77a0c-dade-b86a-cbeb-6f85d3d137e1@dunslane.net>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:29:12 -0400
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On 6/9/21 9:50 PM, Dean Gibson (DB Administrator) wrote:
> Having now successfully migrated from PostgreSQL v9.6 to v13.2 in
> Amazon RDS, I wondered, why I am paying AWS for an RDS-based version,
> when I was forced by their POLICY to go through the effort I did?  I'm
> not one of the crowd who thinks, "It works OK, so I don't update
> anything".  I'm usually one who is VERY quick to apply upgrades,
> especially when there is a fallback ability.  However, the initial
> failure to successfully upgrade from v9.6 to any more recent major
> version, put me in a time-limited box that I really don't like to be in.
>
> If I'm going to have to deal with maintenance issues, like I easily
> did when I ran native PostgreSQL, why not go back to that?  So, I've
> ported my database back to native PostgreSQL v13.3 on an AWS EC2
> instance.  It looks like I will save about 40% of the cost, which is
> in accord with this article: 
> https://www.iobasis.com/Strategies-to-reduce-Amazon-RDS-Costs/
>
> Why am I mentioning this here?  Because there were minor issues &
> benefits in porting back to native PostgreSQL, that may be of interest
> here:
>
> First, pg_dumpall (v13.3) errors out, because on RDS, you cannot be a
> superuser, & it tries to dump protected stuff.  If there is a way
> around that, I'd like to know it, even though it's not an issue now. 
> pg_dump works OK, but of course you don't get the roles dumped. 
> Fortunately, I kept script files that have all the database setup, so
> I just ran them to create all the relationships, & then used the
> pg_dump output.  Worked flawlessly.


This was added in release 12 specifically with RDS in mind:


   pg_dumpall --exclude-database


cheers


andrew


-- 

Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com