PostgreSQL 8.0 Enters Beta

gavinroy writes "As announced in pgsql-announce, PostgreSQL 8.0 Beta is now available. New features include native win32 support, Point in Time Recovery, Tablespaces, and much more! here is the beta history if you want more information."

Comments

I recommend Mysql users to take a look at PG

[xutopia]

it is the most advanced Open Source database there is. If anything pissed you off with MySQL chances are Postgresql will have a solution for you.

Re:Windows support

[Khomar]

I think Windows support is the only reason MySQL is so popular...ahead of MySQL in terms of everything but speed. (emphasis added)

You cannot overlook the speed aspect as well. For many, many databases, the special features of foreign keys, stored procedures, etc. are not required. I have worked extensively with Oracle databases in the past, so I am well aware of the advantanges of these advanced features. However, in my current company, there has been no need. Most of our databases, while large, consist of a very small number of tables. The vast majority of our searches are performed on a single table, and these searches are completely optimized for speed. Stored procedures will not help in these scenarios, and foreign keys are not needed. I imagine there are a lot of web sites and applications that have the same characteristics.

I will not deny that the Windows support is huge, but it is not the only factor in MySQL's court. Speed is a huge issue, especially in the database world.

Re:Can it Compete with Oracle or DB2?

[Stone316]

There's more to a database than feature set. While postgreSQL has enough features for 98% of the applications out there it isn't that simple.

In 8 years i've never lost data from an Oracle database from a software problem. I've seen data get lost, corrupted for a number of reasons including incompetent DBA's and their managers. (Off topic but once I was called into a major telephone company because they had some corrupted blocks from a hardware issue. I asked them how long did they keep their backups, 3 months they replied. Ok, how long have you known about this problem, 5 months. Hrmm... 3 - 5 = -2. You can fill in the rest of the story..)

I haven't used postgreSQL in a production environment long enough to know how stable it is. The reason companies choose commercial vendors for their DB's are two fold:

1) Track record. They know if they pick Oracle or DB2 they are getting a solid,proven database system. And there is an abundance (if not expensive) of knowledge out there. Their support is bar none and for the most part I have been extremely satisfied.

2) Managemnt loves to save money. Who wouldn't want to be able to say they saved the company millions of dollars by going to a 'free' or inexpensive (if you pay for support) rdbms like postgresql or mysql. One reason, blame. Opensource still has the stigma attached to it that no one is accountable for bugs. If a critical revenue generating db goes down because of a bug a manager needs to be able to point their finger. Until this stigma goes away we won't see alot of opensource adoption in the DB market. Whether this is right or wrong doesn't matter, people don't like change and opensource is a huge change for alot of managers.

Re:Database Questions

[ciroknight]

To the second question: Nobody in the open source world.

Microsoft's on the way to doing it, and there was a small project that existed for a few months that allowed GNOME to access a database as a file system (It was very nasty; involved a kernel patch (a CORBA orb) that nobody was too happy about, so the project never took off.)

I've thought about the problem a few times. It requires the kernel pass information back to user space, unless the database was actually incorporated into kernel space (and that won't blow over well for a number of reasons). Passing the data back to user space requires a messaging system. The problem is, there are very few messaging systems out there designed specifically for kernelspace-userspace communication. CORBA was one developers answer; my answer would to be to ground up a protocol (because I feel that a network messaging solution, i.e. TCP/IP, can't be secured well enough in the long run).

Lastly, a daemon needs to exist to listen to the calls from the kernel and interpret them into SQL. This could be built into the kernel itself, but once again you have to question the security of the kernel building an SQL query that would go directly to the database server. Also, one of the better parts about this daemon would be metadata extraction; since the daemon is virtually transparent to both the user and the database server, the metadata can be completely ripped from the data and stored in a seperate table to allow for much faster, more optimised searches. EXIF Tags can be copied from JPEGs, ID3 tags copied from MP3s, etc.

Ideally, the daemon would be pluggable, allowing for anyone's metadata extension to be added after compiliation, but I believe that it's important to have a functional system before having a featureful system.

If you'd like to talk more about it, I'm really open to the idea of finally having an SQL-based file system. A relational database file system is the future; if we get there before Windows, we can add yet another example of the speed of open source development.