Performing simple dumps
Backups and data exports are important because without backups, you are effectively putting your database at risk in the case of crashes and storage-related issues. If you are running through a PostgreSQL setup, there are basically two main methods of performing backups:
- Logical dumps (extracting a SQL script that represents your data)
- Transaction log shipping
The idea behind transaction log shipping is to archive binary changes made to the database. Most people claim that transaction log shipping is the only real way to create backups. However, in my opinion, this is not necessarily true.
Many people rely on pg_dump to simply extract a textual representation of the data. Interestingly, pg_dump is also the oldest method of creating a backup and has been around since the very early days of the PostgreSQL project (transaction log shipping was added much later). Every PostgreSQL administrator becomes familiar with pg_dump sooner or later,...
