I'm not dead.
I've just passed the worst period in my life. Four months, it seems ages.
Anyway, I'm back.
For now I'll do just a quick update then I hope I will start to post with more frequency.
I've submitted my first bug report on PostgreSQL, but id #8192, the default block size. Funny indeed.
The bug, if a bug it is, is quite strange. I noticed on a strange lag on my hot standby machines, 9.1 and 9.2. During a conventional vacuum on the master the slave started lagging in a strange way, the recovery process stuck on a single wal file accumulating lag and lag.
The bug description with the steps to reproduce can be found here. With small databases probably the problem will run silent unnoticed, but I'm not dealing with small databases...
And that's drive us to the next news. I'll do a talk to the upcoming PGDay UK next July the 12th. I will talk about very large database maintenance, how to keep in shape indices and tables with minimal impact on the application layer using a very small maintenance window.
Last but not least July the 9th at the Skiff in the sunny Brighton UK I will do a talk for the Python Brighton and Hove Users Group.
I'm still deciding the title, probably will be some sort of cookbook for developers from a DBA point of view.
A couple of things to know about Postgresql....
(before start coding)
Sounds good.