Getting_Started

• What You Need To Begin Postgres-XC
  • Starting with Minimum Hardware
  • Multi-node Cluster
  • Operating Systems
• Before you start
• Configuring and operating Postgres-XC cluster with pgxc_ctl

What You Need To Begin Postgres-XC

Starting with Minimum Hardware

You can install the Postgres-XC on a single server, if you want to just try it out and understand how to configure and execute it. You may also install and use different virtual machines for different Postgres-XC component or set of its components.

Although you can install Postgres-XC cluster in single Linux operating system, we advise you to install on multiple Linux virtual machines using Virtual Box or VMWare. The number of virtual machines depends on the Postgres-XC configuration. Please take a look at configuration section in this page.

We advise you to use 64bit architecture Intel machines with at least 4GB of memory even in this case.

You may be able to choose any popular Linux operating system for Intel 64bit architecture. The developemnt team uses CentOS 5.4 for testing and evaluation.

A minimum hardware configuration will be useful to test Postgres-XC features. Of course, if you'd like to better experience how Postgres-XC scales, we advise you to use multiple servers for your cluster.

Multi-node Cluster

You can also configure Postgres-XC on several servers. For example, the Postgres-XC development team is using eleven servers in total to run Postgres-XC and another four servers to generate a workload for performance testing. If possible, we advise to have at least three servers and one additional (slow and inexpensive) server for Postgres-XC, and another (one or more) server to run your application.

Operating Systems

Postgres-XC currently runs on the Linux Operating Systems running on 64-bit Intel(R) processors.

The development team tested this with Cent-OS 5.8.

Before you start

We advise to read the documentation carefully before you start. Most of the installation steps are very similar to PostgreSQL but you should take extra care in configuring the Postgres-XC cluster.

Configuration and operation using pgxc_ctl will be a good shortcut for you to start with. Tutorial will be found in CHAR(13) presentation material and pgxc_ctl primer document.

The Arcitecture document will give you detailed background as to how Postgres-XC works and how you can configure your Postgres-XC cluster.

Please visit the [Download] page to find required files and download accordingly. Or you should visit files page in development page.

Configuring and operating Postgres-XC cluster with pgxc_ctl

Postgres-XC 1.1 comes with pgxc_ctl tool, which helps Postgres-XC cluster configuration and operation. Please visit [Pgxc_ctl_tutorial] page.