>For large tables that require a 24/7 uptime and see around 6-10 million
>changes a day, how do I run VACUM without taking the database/table down.
>Considering moving from MySQL, but can't quite understand how to run
>PostgreSQL in a production enviroment properly.
a) Using replication, you can "vacuum" one server meanwhile the other is
working.
There are two utilities for PostgreSQL v7.1 (eRServer and RServ
v0.1), but I don't know the level of maturity of this utilities. I suppose
that they aren't in production level.
b) 1.- Stop the postmaster daemon
2.- Make a copy of the database files directly from the filesistem.
3.- start the postmaster daemon.
The second should stop the service a short time compared with
"vacuumdb".