Using an externally hosted postGreSQL as a gnu cash backend?

[Tao, Tchie]

DBAs generally focus on making sure the DBMS (Postgres, Oracle, MySQL...)
runs well, is tuned properly with available memory and space, that
tablespaces are rationally arranged to optimize performance, indices are
optimized, security set, and that backups and recovery logs work properly.

The actual design layout of tables and the like is called schema design and
is often done by developers and increasingly by data architects.

If anyone here is hiring a DBA, make sure you are looking for a systems and
platform DBA with the above skills.  As someone else on this thread
mentioned, the schema design part has been admirably handled by he GnuCash
development team.

-T

On Monday, April 11, 2016, Michael Wagner <mikepwagner at mikepwagner.net>
wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> Here's the actual quote from a year ago:
>
> "If you're not an experienced Database Administrator for your server of
> choice, you must either use a different backend, hire an experienced DBA
> (expect to pay a 6-figure USD salary), or spend the several years of study
> and practice required to gain the needed knowledge and experience."
>
> That seems to be reasonably close to the description I posted  - and it
> turned out not to be true. It probably took a couple of hours of reading
> for me figure out how to install and set up PostGres on mu Ubuntu box, and
> the vanilla PostGres settings all worked like a charm.
>
> I only bring that up because I think that there is a lot of fear,
> uncertainty and dread of the complexity of DBs in general and of PostGres
> in particular.
>
> That's a shame because DBs are a great tool for doing things a lot of
> people really want to do. When you really want your data to be there, you
> probably want your data in DB. A DB on top of a RAID 5 store is about as
> close to "forever" as I am likely to get in my lifetime.
>
> I don't have RAID 5 on my laptop (though I have thought about putting a
> couple of SSDs in a box and installing freeBSD with ZFS so I at least get
> mirroring). But it is very comforting to know what panics and power
> failures cannot corrupt my gnu cash data.
>
> That's not true for any of the flat file back ends (e.g., XML).
>
> I have never done DBA work for a living, but my sense is the bulk of the
> hard work of a DBA is really the architecture (how the tables are laid out,
> etc). And the gnucash developers have done all the hard work.
>
> I am probably more aware of this than most folks because I wrote and
> maintained a tiny primitive (kernel access) DB engine for a good poriotn of
> my career, so I learned about ACID properties by having to implement them.
> :-)
>
> In short, after a year of using gnucash with a PostGres back end, I think
> it's very, very cool and give gnucash developers  major kudos for offering
> that.
>
> From my (somewhat nerdy) perspective. from what I know of DB guarantees and
> the ease of setting up PostGres, I am surprised everyone hasn't switched to
> using the PostGres DB - a huge number if data reliability problem are
> solved.
>
> Mike
>
> [...]