Re: Is Diskeeper Automatic Mode safe?

Greg Smith wrote:
> cb wrote:
>> My understanding is, before I joined the company, they did an upgrade
>> from 7 on Linux to 8 on Windows and got bit by some change in PG that
>> broke a bunch of code. After that, they have just refused to budge
>> from the 8.0.4 version we are on and know the code works against.
> Yes; that's one of the reasons there was a major version number bump
> there. That's a completely normal and expected issue to run into. A
> similar problem would happen if they tried to upgrade to 8.3 or later
> from 8.0--you can expect the app to break due to a large change made in
> 8.3.
>
> Sounds to me like the app doesn't really work against the version you're
> running against now though, from the issues you described. Which brings
> us to the PostgreSQL patching philosophy, which they may not be aware
> of. Upgrades to later 8.0 releases will contain *nothing* but bug and
> security fixes.

To elaborate on Greg's point: One of the cool things about Postgres "minor" releases (e.g. everything in the 8.0.*) series, is that you can backup your software, turn off Postgres, install the new version, and just fire it up again, and it works. Any problems? Just revert to the old version.

It's an easy sell to management. They can try it, confirm that none of the apps have broken, and if there are problems, you simple say "oops", and revert to the old version. If it works, you're the hero, if not, it's just a couple hours of your time.

Craig