Re: minimizing downtime when upgrading

snacktime wrote:
> Anyone have any tips for minimizing downtime when upgrading? So far
> we have done upgrades during scheduled downtimes. Now we are getting
> to the point where the time required for a standard dump/restore is
> just too long. What have others done when downtime is critical? The
> only solution we have been able to come up with is to migrate the data
> on a per user basis to a new database server. Each user is a
> merchant, and the data in the database is order data. Migrating one
> merchant at a time will keep the downtime per merchant limited to just
> the time it takes to migrate the data for that merchant, which is
> acceptable.

The other option would be to run replication, e.g. slony to migrate from
one version to another. I've done it and it works fine, but it will mean
slony adding its own tables to each database. I'd still do it one
merchant at a time, but that should reduce your downtime to seconds.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd