Really nice to see the direction things are moving in... I do feel that the replication/failover story needs a lot of work, but there's been some progress towards getting it in the box. Even digging into any kind of HA strategy is cumbersome to say the least (short of a 5-6 figure support contract). It's one of the things that generally stops me from considering PostgreSQL for a lot of projects. As a side note, I really like how RethinkDB's administrative interface is and their failover usage. It would be great to see something similar reach an integration point for PostgreSQL.
I also think that PLv8 should probably make it in the box in the next release or two. With the addition of JSON and Binary JSON data options, having a procedural interface that leverages JS in the box would be a huge win IMHO. Though I know some would be adamantly opposed to this idea.
> I do feel that the replication/failover story needs a lot of work, but there's been some progress towards getting it in the box. Even digging into any kind of HA strategy is cumbersome to say the least (short of a 5-6 figure support contract)
Eeeh...a simple HA solution can be developed in about a week (I was able to do so on 9.3, and so far, it held it's ground). Also, now with 9.5's pg_rewind you can easily switch back and forth between nodes (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.5/static/app-pgrewind.html), simplifying things a great deal. Can't imagine that's 5-6 figures.
I agree that you don't get a Plug&Play-Solution out of the box, but from anecdotal evidence they often don't quite work as advertised anyway (remember 1995? And I'm sure your friendly DBA has some stories to share as well).
> Even digging into any kind of HA strategy is cumbersome to say the least (short of a 5-6 figure support contract). It's one of the things that generally stops me from considering PostgreSQL for a lot of projects.
If you're going to be hosting your db on something like AWS EC2 anyways, then just buy a db product like AWS RDS, and pay for the HA option. Ends up around the same price as if you'd set up everything yourself (assuming you were going to host on AWS anyways, and not going with a low cost option), and is very easy.
I also think that PLv8 should probably make it in the box in the next release or two. With the addition of JSON and Binary JSON data options, having a procedural interface that leverages JS in the box would be a huge win IMHO. Though I know some would be adamantly opposed to this idea.