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PostgreSQL on Big Sites?
An anonymous reader asks: "I've been using PostgreSQL for years on small projects, and I have an opportunity to migrate my company's websites from Oracle to an open-source alternative. It would be good to be able to show the PHBs that PostgreSQL is a viable candidate, but I'm unable to find a list of high-traffic sites that use it. Does anyone know of any popular sites that run PostgreSQL?"
See, for instance, PostgreSQL Case Studies and from the pgsql-advocacy mailing list comes some more: Finally, a list of *big* companies using PostgreSQL for *serious* projects. Why use PostgreSQL? Here's why for some examples.
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MadPenguin has an interview with Josh Berkus, one of the core team members of PostgreSQL.
SPI, the authoritative .org registrar, and Afilias, the authoritative .info registrar both use PostgreSQL for their registration databases.
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> Is your companies website essentially read-only page loading? If so, why not just go with MySQL.
MyISAM can't handle a database of larger than 2 gigs. Once you switch to another table backend, MySQL's vaunted performance advantage pretty much evaporates.
> Peak volume, company is making $1M/hour in sales on the web, db dies and won't come up....who you gonna call?
My DBA, assuming I'm running point-in-time recovery. That's all Oracle is going to tell you to do. The unemployment office if I'm not. Although PITR in pgsql is something of a PITA, which just might go to recommend Oracle for the time being.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
Their website shows that BASF uses PostgreSQL as their DB.
www.basf.com
They're an enormous company. I've always heard too that PostgreSQL is much better for larger sites. Cannot say for sure though as I have never used it.
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This question really requires more data. How much traffic are we talking about? How much data are we talking about? And then there are all sorts of variables, like the type of content begin stored in the database, the number and types of queries that are done on each page, and the type of caching your application is doing.
Also, if Oracle is already purchased and paid for, you will have a difficult time making a business case for PostgreSQL.
Don't get me wrong, I like PostgreSQL. But you will want to have a reason for switching, aside from PostgreSQL being open source.
Just because your company can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (or millions for a large installation) on something that's really orthogonal to the actual business that your company is in, doesn't mean you should.
If I was a PHB type for an online retailer and I looked at the costs and noticed that 50% of our profits are going to Oracle rather than to our pockets, I'd have some questions for the IT guys like:
(1) Are we a retailer or a data warehousing company?
(2) What is Oracle and why is it so expensive?
(3) Can you get the same job done with less money? If so, what costs, benefits, and risks might we see?
(4) My friend's IT guys use this thing called Post-whatever-SQL, and it costs $0. Is Oracle kinda like that?
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