On 3/10/25 12:11, Laurenz Albe wrote:
On Mon, 2025-03-10 at 09:28 +0200, Achilleas Mantzios - cloud wrote:
[doesn't think running PostgreSQL in containers in production
is such a hot idea, but sees the concept going mainstream]
What are your thoughts ? I am puzzled because while I used to hear many
skeptical opinions until some years ago, now the trend seems to more on
the "acceptance" or neutral side.
Well, lots of people think it is a great idea to host their important
database in a public cloud. Fashions are not necessarily based on wisdom.
Using Kubernetes for test and play databases that you create and destroy
regularly is a great thing.
Using Kubernetes to squish many small databases on a single machine
while managing the resource usage can be useful.
If you use Kubernetes for everything else and it makes monitoring easy
for you, it may make sense to run a production database that way.
Running your database on Kubernetes will make database administration
and troubleshooting more cumbersome and will require you to create special
containers for the purpose of upgrading. If these disadvantages are
outbalanced by the above advantages, it may make sense.
If you plan to run serious databases on Kubernetes, you better have
dedicated nodes for that purpose, so that you can tune the kernel
parameters.
Thank you Laurenz,
Those friends of mine are PgSQL noobs (hence the choice to use docker),
and have no plans AFAIK to deploy kubernetes in the near (or distant)
future. So to say my opinion on the advantages one by one :
- they dont create and drop DBs regularly, e..g I upgrade from 14.* ->
17 yesterday so this DB was live for some years now.
- they have a few small DBs for the moment, with one being the main, so
no need for squishing either
- they have no kubernetes running or any k8s plans for the future that I
know of.
For all those reasons, and while they still learning the basics of PgSQL
, I dont think docker is a good idea. Plus they dont have a DBA (apart
from me which I kinda work in a volunteer basis), and when I eventually
leave them, I would like their system to be in a good shape for the next
one.
Yours,
Laurenz Albe
