RE: [SQL] Deleting indexes before vacuum?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Oleg Bartunov [mailto:oleg@sai.msu.su]
> Sent: Saturday, November 20, 1999 1:57 AM
> To: Tom Lane
> Cc: Matthew Hagerty; pgsql-sql@postgreSQL.org
> Subject: Re: [SQL] Deleting indexes before vacuum? 
> 
> 
> I see another reason for index/vacuum/create
> Currently index files grows infinitely because vacuum analyze
> doesn't truncates them. Vadim has implemented in 6.5.3 a 
> quick hack for
> index reuse, but indices still grow. This cause a visible performance
> degradation if your table is often updated.
> The question is: what's the right way to do index/vacuum/create ?
> Do I need transaction ?
> 
>     Regards,
>         Oleg
> 

Another quick question as we're on this subject: what if i could never shut
the database down to do those drop/vacuum/create steps? I'm asking b/c we're
running a 911 service here and have to be online 24hours/day since you never
know when an emergency call is going to happen. Is there any other way of
keeping the database always online but letting you do preventive maintenance
stuff? How about replication?

Thanks,
Thinh