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> we had a come to Jesus moment when the database shat itself and the backups wre not working as they should have been So who was responsible for testing that

> we had a come to Jesus moment when the database shat itself and the backups wre not working as they should have been So who was responsible for testing that the backups worked? Sounds like it was equally a process failure (not verifying backups worked) as a technical one. > I'd genuinely love to know if postgres is as reliable as Oracle. Not just in day to day use, but on that once in a blue moon occasion when you really need it to be. If you follow best practices for postgres, have a streaming replica and streaming wal archiving (e.g. to barman) then I firmly believe it's basically bullet proof. If the master shits itself you have the very latest transaction logs available on replica and point in time recovery servers. Postgres also introduced support recently for native multi-master servers. This has been supported for a while by third party extensions like bucardo, but thanks to the work of 2nd quadrent there's now a multi-master implementation provided by postgres itself. If you want a case study of a large business using postgres, look at Zalando (EU online clothing retailer) and their work with it.

chris_wot 10y ago
That's kind of missing the point a bit. He is really looking for what all IT managers are looking for at companies of a certain size: someone to pull his kahones from the fire when and as where needed. The real answer is: yes, there are people who can give you this level of support if you use Postgres, at I suspect cheaper rates and likely with a faster response time. For the situation to occur that he describes with an Oracle database then a truly terrifying sequence of catastrophic events must have occurred, because Oracle is quite recoverable. But then again, so is Postgres. And under normal circumstances, Oracle support is absolutely dreadful, so I shudder to think what sort of money they paid Oracle to recover from this event!
- x0x0 10y ago
  A former employer purchased support from EnterpriseDB. If you pay enough, you get support up to pg core devs on the phone with (I think?) a 60 minute sla 24x7. We paid them a ton of money and they definitely came through for us once, helping diagnose index corruption circa 2010-ish.
- amake 10y ago
  *cojones
  - chris_wot 10y ago
    Thank you :-)
devonkim 10y ago
Almost the entirety of enterprise software is built on a customerbase that are buying technology in an effort to make up for failures and inefficiencies in people and processes. Buying such software arrangements are a lot closer to buying a piece of a company than a basic technology project. The way companies approach their technology is as varied as how people approach food (and probably exercise). Some think of it as a necessary evil and eat junk food because it's cheap and sates hunger, some want tasty food from a reasonable supply chain, some cook a few things and eat out for special occasions or if they messed up and burned the food, and some keep going to chain restaurants because they are afraid / uninterested in deviating from what similar people with lack of sense of adventure do. I'm not sure if I can make the madness of enterprise software / technology more clear than using a non-technical line of reasoning because the reasons are simply not technical at all.

chris_wot 10y ago

That's kind of missing the point a bit. He is really looking for what all IT managers are looking for at companies of a certain size: someone to pull his kahones from the fire when and as where needed. The real answer is: yes, there are people who can give you this level of support if you use Postgres, at I suspect cheaper rates and likely with a faster response time. For the situation to occur that he describes with an Oracle database then a truly terrifying sequence of catastrophic events must have occurred, because Oracle is quite recoverable. But then again, so is Postgres. And under normal circumstances, Oracle support is absolutely dreadful, so I shudder to think what sort of money they paid Oracle to recover from this event!

x0x0 10y ago
A former employer purchased support from EnterpriseDB. If you pay enough, you get support up to pg core devs on the phone with (I think?) a 60 minute sla 24x7. We paid them a ton of money and they definitely came through for us once, helping diagnose index corruption circa 2010-ish.
amake 10y ago
*cojones
- chris_wot 10y ago
  Thank you :-)

devonkim 10y ago

Almost the entirety of enterprise software is built on a customerbase that are buying technology in an effort to make up for failures and inefficiencies in people and processes. Buying such software arrangements are a lot closer to buying a piece of a company than a basic technology project. The way companies approach their technology is as varied as how people approach food (and probably exercise). Some think of it as a necessary evil and eat junk food because it's cheap and sates hunger, some want tasty food from a reasonable supply chain, some cook a few things and eat out for special occasions or if they messed up and burned the food, and some keep going to chain restaurants because they are afraid / uninterested in deviating from what similar people with lack of sense of adventure do. I'm not sure if I can make the madness of enterprise software / technology more clear than using a non-technical line of reasoning because the reasons are simply not technical at all.