Re: High end server and storage for a PostgreSQL OLTP system

> Hi all,
> 1) What kind of performance gain can I expect switching from
> 7.1 to 7.4 (or 8.0)? Obviously I'm doing my own testing,
> but I'm not very impressed by 8.0 speed, may be I'm doing
> testing on a low end server...

8.0 gives you savepoints. While this may not seem like a big deal at
first, the ability to handle exceptions inside pl/pgsql functions gives
you much more flexibility to move code into the server. Also, recent
versions of pl/pgsql give you more flexibility with cursors, incuding
returning them outside of the function.
Corollary: use pl/pgsql. It can be 10 times or more faster than query
by query editing.

You also have the parse/bind interface. This may not be so easily to
implement in your app, but if you are machine gunning your server with
queries, use parameterized prepared queries and reap 50% + performance,
meaning lower load and quicker transaction turnaround time.

Merlin