Stuart Bishop wrote: -- Start of PGP signed section. > Arnaud Lesauvage wrote: > > Hi list ! > > > > I have a small enterprise network (~15 workstations, 1 server), all > > running windows OSes. Most of our work is done on a PostgreSQL DB (on > > the windows server). > > I am the only IT here, and my boss asked me to find a way to have the > > database always online, without my intervention. > > Last time I went on vacation, the server crashed and no one was able to > > repair it. > > If your application is normally reliable, I think the best, cheapest and > simplest way of keeping the system online when you are on leave is to give > your work the phone number of a company offering PostgreSQL support > services. I would avoid adding the extra complexity and additional support > and maintenance burdens unless you really need it - can work afford to be > without the system for a day if it crashes? And do you expect it to happen > infrequently enough that the outages will not be a problem? The advantage of > having a human available to restore functionality is that they will be able > to deal with the situations you haven't thought of, whereas an automated > solution will likely only deal with the situations you have thought of as > well as making the system more complex, thus creating more things that could > go wrong. Right. There was a great 1998 article in the Atlantic Monthly about the Valujet crash: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98mar/valujet1.htm Unfortunately that requires a subscription so I pulled a relivant paragraph: http://candle.pha.pa.us/main/valujet The issue is that reducing risk can increase it, as seen with Valujet, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. -- Bruce Momjian http://candle.pha.pa.us EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
