[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Postgres requirements for 2.12 and 3.0

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

At today's developers meeting, we discussed minimum Postgres 
requirements for the 2.12 and 3.0 Evergreen releases. Those attending 
the meeting would like to make the following recommendations for 
Postgres support.

For the 2.12 release, deprecate Postgres 9.3 support and recommend use 
of Postgres 9.4.
For the 3.0 release, make Postgres 9.4 a minimum requirement.

A primary reason for this recommendation is related to an upcoming 
development project that will require Postgres 9.4 features. This 
project is expected to be ready for the 3.0 release.

Equinox is currently working on a development project to improve 
Evergreen search (more information on this project in an earlier e-mail 
at http://markmail.org/message/4styymc3asioa5yl).   The goal of this 
work is to eliminate two-stage search from Evergreen, leading to a more 
complete set of search results. Early analysis has also shown that, 
after this work is done, searches should be as fast or faster than the 
existing code base, with the biggest performance gains
seen with more selective searches. This project requires the use of 
database functions only available in Postgres 9.4+

Also note the following end of life dates that are coming up with 
Postgres and Evergreen releases.

Postgres 9.3 end of life date: September 2018
Postgres 9.4 end of life date: December 2019
Evergreen 2.12 end of life date: March 2018
Evergreen 3.0 end of life date: September 2018

Postgres 9.4 has been in release since December 2014 and is already used 
successfully in production at many Evergreen sites. The new requirements 
would not impact any Evergreen releases prior to the 2.12 release.

We had a light attendance at the dev meeting when we discussed these 
requirements. We therefore wanted to throw this recommendation out to 
the list before firming it up. If you have any questions or concerns 
about the recommendation, please send a response to the list by the end 
of the day Friday.

Thank you!
Kathy

-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier