Big Bad "Upgraded" PostgreSQL

A few years ago, we started a project to upgrade our multi-terabyte database from 8.3 to 8.4. Along the way we encountered a number of different obstacles and roadblocks which caused us to postpone the project, but this past fall we finally made it through phase 1 of the project, which by now had become an upgrade from 8.3 to 9.1. The course of the talk will cover several tools and tactics we had to use to get pg_upgrade to complete successfully, including all the different ways that things blew up on us. We'll also discuss some of the changes we saw after the upgrade, and discuss some of the improvements we've made using new 9.1 features.

Long time Postgres may be familiar with the "Big Bad" series of talks, which discuss different ways we have had to bend Postgres to serve the needs of a high transaction, multi-terabyte decision support system. Our talks have featured both technical highlights and low lights, from innovative techniques to outright server meltdown, and all the good times in between. If you are using Postgres for mission critical applications, you'll enjoy this look inside the operations of a complex system that lives on the edge.