>> Ah, well #1 on his list then is to figure out what he is running! > > LOL, I know it sounds quite noobish, coming across like I've no idea > what DBMS it is running on. The system currently runs on MySQL but > part of my update requirement was to decouple the DBMS so that we can > make an eventual switch to postgresql. > > Hence the solution cannot be dependent on some specific MySQL functionality. mysql's isam tables have a reputation for surviving just about anything and great builtin replication support... postgresql less so (I suspect due to fake fsync/fsyncdata in the days before barriers) but maybe things have improved a lot nowadays. Why are you switching?