[GENERAL] Re: Is PostgreSQL ready for mission criticalapplications?

[Jochen Topf]

Kaare Rasmussen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: But I am not imagining the random "I have rolled back the current
: transaction
: and am going to terminate your database system connection and exit."
: messages.

: I'm wondering if you ever reported these problems to this list or the
: the hackers list? I've been reading both regularily and don't recall
: seeing this descussed before, but maybe I'm wrong.

: Generally I find the responsiveness from the development team way better
: than any commercial products. _All_ problem reports are treated with
: concern. So if you didn't report them before, please take the time to
: document your experience and send the problem report to the correct
: place.

No I haven't reported them. I have reported a minor bug that I could reproduce
to the bug tracking system. But all the other problems I had, were, as I said,
not reproducable. I tried to come up with a small test case for some of the
bugs and failed. Sure I can report them all, but the developers will tell me,
and rightly so, that they can't do anything with it, because they can't
reproduce it. I know that this is not very helpful, but I know no easy way out
here.

Jochen
-- 
Jochen Topf - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.remote.org/jochen/

[GENERAL] Re: Is PostgreSQL ready for mission critical applications?

[Jochen Topf]

The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: [...]
: take a look at:
: [list deleted]
: Each one of those is mission critical to the person using it, and, in some
: cases, I'd say to the ppl that they affect (Utility Billing and POS System
: are the two that come to mind there)...
: [...]

Well, there are millions of people using Microsoft products for mission
critical applications. I would never do that. :-) Maybe my standards are higher
or my applications different. So this list really doesn't say much. The
problem with databases in general is, that my standards for them are way
higher then for most other pieces of software. If my web server failes, I
restart it. If a mail server fails, I restart it, if syslog failes, I don't
have a log file. But if a database failes, it is generally a lot more trouble.
On the other hand a database is generally, apart from the kernel, the most
complex thing running on your servers...

: Quite frankly, I think the fact that Jochen is still around *even though*
: he has problems says alot about the quality of both the software and the
: development processes that we've developed over the past year, and also
: gives a good indication of where we are going...

This is true. Despite of the problems I had with PostgreSQL, the system
I am using it for still runs PostgreSQL and it sort of works. We have to
reload the database every once in a while, and some of the triggers, I would
like to have, don't work. But basically it works. If you don't have the
money to go for a commercial database, PostgreSQL is not a bad option. But
don't think that everything with PostgreSQL is as bright, like some of the
postings make you believe. Watch your database for performance and other
problems, don't forget the backups and think about how to build your
application that it failes gracefully if the database screws up.

If you have an Oracle database you don't do that, you hire a DBA for it.
There is no way you can do it yourself. :-)

Jochen
-- 
Jochen Topf - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.remote.org/jochen/