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Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

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Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#241

Post by jeltz »

phil21 wrote: post #185
MichaelZuo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the real question is, why is the upgrade process so incompetently designed, and why has no one fixed this?

My opinion is Postgres was designed by software developers for software developers. The split on “which relational database to use” in my career has almost always been perfectly split between SWE vehemently demanding pgsql for the feature set, and the sysadmins having to support maintenance and production availability preferring MySQL. One of the few things I’ve enjoyed with the move into devops and companies forcing…

That has not been my experience at all. The sysadmins I have worked with have strongly preferred PostgreSQL over running MySQL while the developers have cared, but less so. The reason is that when something goes wrong PostgreSQL is much easier to diagnose. So while some tasks like upgrades take less manual effort with MySQL PostgreSQL is more stable and gives better error messages for when you get paged in the middle of the night.

PostgreSQL has prioritized correctness and stability which while it has made certain features more clunky to use or taken longer time for them to be implemented, when you get paged n the middle of the night you get the time you spent back. PostgreSQL also has spent a lot of time on improving DBA experience so mixed DBA/sysadmins also usually prefer PG.

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#242

Post by mxey »

jgb1984 wrote: post #129

I've used postgresql in most of my previous jobs, but using mariadb in my current one, and I must say it's a joy to administer. The replication and high availability that mariadb offers is rock solid, and much more advanced than what postgresql has to offer. It works out of the box, no plugins or third party shenanigans needed, and there is "one obvious way" to do it. Not a dozen options like in the postgresql ecosys…

> The replication and high availability that mariadb offers is rock solid, and much more advanced than what postgresql has to offer. It works out of the box, no plugins or third party shenanigans needed, and there is "one obvious way" to do it.

Looking at https://mariadb.com/kb/en/standard-replication/, is the one obvious way binlog replication or Galera?

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#244

Post by jskrablin »

throw0101c wrote: post #236
homebrewer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MySQL/MariaDB have binary and logical replication too. They also support much more advanced topologies like multi-master out of the box. It's just that what you need for 99% of situations relies on a well trodden path and requires no configuration at all. I have suspected for a long time that most people who criticize MySQL have never actually worked with it, or have done so a couple of decades ago. It's often the de…

> They also support much more advanced topologies like multi-master out of the box. This is the one thing in My/MariaDB that I miss in Pg: Galera. So handy for in-house stuff that needs some kind of HA: either a three-server setup, or a two-server+arbitrator.

Try https://pg-auto-failover.readthedocs.io/en/main/intro.html

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#245

Post by mxey »

sofixa wrote: post #105
vivzkestrel wrote: post #102

i ll tell you why from my end. I installed Postgres14 via homebrew many years ago on my Apple M1 mac mini. I searched a lot on how to "upgrade" this installation but found nothing. I have a few databases running with data on it which I can't afford to lose if something goes down for more than 1 hour. I wish someone would guide me on how to actually install a newer postgres such as v17 without breaking an existing v14…

And this, kids, is a good example of why homebrew is not a real package manager, and why macOS is not the best at running production services. I hope you have a backup somewhere else, not on the Mac Mini. One option would be to restore it on another machine on Postgres 14, follow the upgrade path to 17 (idk if you can jump directly but a few Google searches will cover this), verify the data, back up the new db, someh…

I don’t see how this is homebrew‘s fault? Homebrew lets you install multiple versions of PostgreSQL at once, which you need for pg_upgrade, just like you can do with APT

brew install postgresql@17

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#246

Post by eru »

phil21 wrote: post #185
MichaelZuo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the real question is, why is the upgrade process so incompetently designed, and why has no one fixed this?

My opinion is Postgres was designed by software developers for software developers. The split on “which relational database to use” in my career has almost always been perfectly split between SWE vehemently demanding pgsql for the feature set, and the sysadmins having to support maintenance and production availability preferring MySQL. One of the few things I’ve enjoyed with the move into devops and companies forcing…

Of course, sqlite is even easier on the sys-admins, (but not necessarily the right tool for the job.)

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#247

Post by jamespo »

throw0101c wrote: post #234
digitallis42 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your scale. If you're a startup or even just a small side service, performance isn't going to be a bottleneck and you/the org wants the thing to be fire and forget, including bug fixes and especially security patches. A distro takes care of all of those generally and makes sure the dependencies have the same care taken.

> A distro takes care of all of those generally and makes sure the dependencies have the same care taken. So does using the vendor repos: * https://apt.postgresql.org/ / https://yum.postgresql.org * https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/repo/ This way when you upgrade your OS you don't have to worry about suddenly getting a new version (which, in the case of MySQL, may take a long time to convert its database files to the…

How does that work for python/perl/ruby libs etc?

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#248

Post by mxey »

throw0101c wrote: post #236
homebrewer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MySQL/MariaDB have binary and logical replication too. They also support much more advanced topologies like multi-master out of the box. It's just that what you need for 99% of situations relies on a well trodden path and requires no configuration at all. I have suspected for a long time that most people who criticize MySQL have never actually worked with it, or have done so a couple of decades ago. It's often the de…

> They also support much more advanced topologies like multi-master out of the box. This is the one thing in My/MariaDB that I miss in Pg: Galera. So handy for in-house stuff that needs some kind of HA: either a three-server setup, or a two-server+arbitrator.

I haven’t used Galera, but I am very happy with https://patroni.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ for Postgres.

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#249

Post by jeltz »

kstrauser wrote: post #172
jgb1984 wrote: post #129

I've used postgresql in most of my previous jobs, but using mariadb in my current one, and I must say it's a joy to administer. The replication and high availability that mariadb offers is rock solid, and much more advanced than what postgresql has to offer. It works out of the box, no plugins or third party shenanigans needed, and there is "one obvious way" to do it. Not a dozen options like in the postgresql ecosys…

To be fair to PostgreSQL, it has multiple replication setups because they have different inherent properties. For instance, it comes with built in streaming and logical replication setups. Which should you use? It’s impossible to say without knowing your own exact use case. By analogy: should a database cluster optimize consistency or availability? Answer: there’s no way its author can guess which is more important t…

The same is true for MariaDB so I have no idea what he is talking about. Both databases have multiple options.

Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

#250

Post by mxey »

homebrewer wrote: post #192
kstrauser wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to PostgreSQL, it has multiple replication setups because they have different inherent properties. For instance, it comes with built in streaming and logical replication setups. Which should you use? It’s impossible to say without knowing your own exact use case. By analogy: should a database cluster optimize consistency or availability? Answer: there’s no way its author can guess which is more important t…

MySQL/MariaDB have binary and logical replication too. They also support much more advanced topologies like multi-master out of the box. It's just that what you need for 99% of situations relies on a well trodden path and requires no configuration at all. I have suspected for a long time that most people who criticize MySQL have never actually worked with it, or have done so a couple of decades ago. It's often the de…

MySQL has only logical replication, there is no equivalent to PostgreSQL‘s WAL/physical replication.
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