One of my favorite things EVER (besides a list of 1000 other favorite things ever) are 'The Far Side' comics by Gary Larson. For those of us fortunate enough to remember, or to have owned the collected works of the strips, have no problem remembering the artwork for "Mr. Osborne, may I be excused? My brain is full.".
Well, assume that I am in that comic - I'm Mr. Osborne... What do I tell the kid? What? What? What! Poor Brian is about to spew his brain gunk all over the class! WHAT DO YOU SAY MR. OSBORNE?!
I say... "You're excused, Brian, git..."
And while the kid is draining his brain - I quickly pass these 'Knuggets' (that's Knowledge Nuggets) on to you - Our VARs, our Customers, the internet lurkers i.e. The rest of the class who isn't brain incontinent.
Lesson 1: Replication How To (wal_shipping):
I've been through a fairly intensive and thorough Wal Log Shipping hands on practical implementation. I now recommend it as a 'Must Have' technology. What I like best about it is that it's easy to maintain and can be setup in about an hour. While there are several drawbacks to this method, I see the major one for our users is that one cannot query the standby, BUT that should be coming to a PostgreSQL release in the fairly near future. I have found you need to be careful of what you read online about this stuff, as the steps for setting it up can be rather sketchy if you're not an expert. To this end, Dave Cramer from PostgreSQL International and I have created some fairly thorough documentation on the subject located at: http://www.xtuple.org/replication-how-to . This guide works well. It's a work in progress, so as I learn more, I'll be making edits and updates to it.
Lesson 2: Exporting CSV from DOS:
Elegant simplicity is how I describe a method for querying a postgres server and dumping the results to a CSV file. "Why would you do this?" you wonder? Oh, I suppose there's reasons for it:
- You like seeing your data in a spreadsheet
- You need to ftp the csv to some remote server
- You wanted to know how it's done in DOS
You could also extend the method in the how-to to a linux/OSX server, just change the .BAT syntax to a shell script (more or less). John Rogelstad thinks that this is functionality that could be worked into our OpenRPT Renderer, as he has recently reworked the CSV code that we use. This is something that I will have to check into. Check out the DOS version at: http://www.xtuple.org/export-csv-howto . Amazing technology...
Shh... Brian's back. Who's ready for the POP QUIZ?
Perry Clark
Promoted to Director of Operations in 2018, Perry served for many years as xTuple's senior database engineer, including administration of global, onsite, and internal systems. He specializes in the design, implement and maintenance of database backup infrastructure and methodologies, including backup test and validation, as well as troubleshooting and tuning database performance. Perry is knowledgeable in most aspects of computer networking, security, operating systems, SQL databases and applications and has imagined and implemented methods for metrics reporting relating to all deployed databases. Manufacturing Specialties: Practical knowledge of various manufacturing processes: including CNC, CAD/CAM, metal forming/shaping, machining, welding, deburring, shaping, polishing, and various plastics processing techniques.