Long Awaited "Deep Dive into Database Backups" walkthrough

[kingdonb]

Many people would benefit from a database-centric guide to Hephy Workflow state.

It should cover at least:

1. How to set up the Database component in stand-alone mode
2. How to configure Database with a storage backend (or without?) and the implications of that
3. The lifecycle preStop hook, and the behavior of triggering a final backup when SIGTERM is caught, before database shuts down
4. The WAL system which protects against the possibility of an unexpected shutdown, like SIGKILL or sudden power/network loss, by streaming transactions to the storage backend.
5. The process of manually verifying backups and restoring backups
6. The mechanism used for automatically upgrading Postgres across major versions in Hephy
7. A list of places where we suggest the Postgres component could be improved

I have been promising to write this guide for a while, and it has not materialized yet, but this is the third or fourth time someone has asked about database, so I wanted to get some thoughts down and start thinking about an outline of content.

[Cryptophobia]

It would be nice to have and we can link to it from the workflow repo and the blog as well. 👍