Oracle and PostgreSQL Debate

Mark Brunelli writes DBAs are talking about the merits of the open source PostgreSQL database management system (DBMS) as compared to Oracle - and their opinions truly run the gamut. DBAs responding to the interview said they liked the low cost and ease of use of the open source database, while others said that Oracle's rich feature cannot be ignored. Still others talked about how well the two systems play together. According to one DBA, a gateway product from Oracle would be a welcome offering."

Comments

If you need Oracle, you need it.

[Anonymous Coward]

90% of the people who use it don't need it. 100% of that 90% are/have been convinced they need it.

Re:If you need Oracle, you need it.

[morgan_greywolf]

There's plenty of misinformation going around. For instance

PostgreSQL doesn't behave as nicely as Oracle when the system fills up, Goulet said. In those instances, the system tends to crash quickly.

I'm, among other things, an Oracle administrator. When the filesystem that holds the databse files fills up on Oracle 9i 9.2.0.4 on both Solaris and Linux, I can tell you for sure that the Oracle instance will crash suddenly, with nothing more than a notation in the log that the disk was full trying to write to file such-and-such.

That's not any different from what they describe with PostgreSQL.

There are other options....

[jarich]

I've been working with Ingres recently. It's GPL and has a great enterprise-proven track record. Best of both worlds.

http://ingres.com/

Postgres tcp/ip too difficult to configure

[zfalcon]

Goulet said that setting up a TCP/IP connection capability with PostgreSQL is hardly an intuitive process. To do it, he says, one needs to modify the postgres.conf and pg_hba.conf files manually.

Uhh...is editing a config file really that difficult a process? It's like two lines.

Re:Postgres tcp/ip too difficult to configure

[Dan Ost]

For a non-trivial application, it is very often impossible to create a configuration GUI that is as clear, capable, and useable as the text config file it is meant to replace/hide.

So what do you do? You end up making assumptions about how the app is "likely" to be used. This makes the GUI usable for people who's needs and desires match your assumptions, but you've essentially reduced the functionality of your application to match those assumptions. People whose needs don't match those assumptions now find your application to be difficult or impossible to use.

On a side note, it has been my experience that people who rely on GUIs to configure non-trivial apps never seem to have a good idea what's actually going on. They simply try something and if that doesn't work, they try something else. People who've actually invested the effort to learn how to modify the config file generally know exactly what change is required to get the desired change in behavior. Those are the people I hire. I don't want someone who is inclined to make changes without understanding their effects first.

Oh, and in the future, if you're going to call someone an elitist (or whatever), at least have the courage to use your own account.

A little of both?

[PCM2]

Why does everything have to be all or nothing? There's nothing stopping an Oracle shop from using PostgreSQL here and there. Plus you've got EnterpriseDB, which bolts Oracle compatibility onto PostgreSQL for a little bit of the best of both worlds. Go ahead and pay Oracle for the top end of what their feature set lets you do and use PostgreSQL for the rest.

The advantage of Open Source

[ksp]

To me, the important advantage of Open Source on the server side is that my data is in an Open Format - because I have the source. I can clean up corruptions or load old backups because I know exactly how the server reads the data.

Also, I can use the same database version forever. I have to get someone to patch the code to run on Vista or Windows Server 2025 or whatever in the future, but the core of the database server remains the same. Database servers just keep running on some server and are forgotten until suddenly someone makes the decision to upgrade those old NT 3.51 servers ASAP. If you run an ancient version of Oracle, you are stuffed. No support for the old version, your proprietary front end application doesn't support the Oracle versions that run on Win2003 - so what do you do? Run your business critical RDBMS at an unsupported version on NT on VMWare on Win2003? With Open Source, you can patch the layer that needs fixing, without changing the rest of the product or include the feature bloat the Oracle Sales keep getting added into their products.

DBA Comparisions - Oracle vs. PostgreSQL

[Anonymous Coward]

If they want something that plays nice with Oracle, they should take a look at http://www.enterprisedb.com/ .

One of the goals of the company is aimed specifically at making life easier for Oracle people on PostgreSQL.

Company I work for runs both PostgreSQL and Oracle. Years ago we were a PostgreSQL only shop. Along comes a Sr. Developer who touts Oracle to management, and they listened to him.

Now we have 2 Sr. Oracle DBAs, 1 Jr., and 2 PL/SQL programmers.

Oh yeah, we don't have any PostgreSQL DBAs. But we have just as many PostgreSQL servers.

Now we are moving some of our applications back to PostgreSQL, which of course scares the Oracle DBAs.

Our servers are heavy-hit. Thousands of queries per-second on both systems. PostgreSQL can keep up with Oracle, and Oracle can keep up with PostgreSQL.

One thing I've noticed about the market that is both good and bad for PostgreSQL - You can put out an Ad for an Oracle DBA and get hundreds of responces. Put one up for PostgreSQL and you get almost none. Almost a year we've had an Ad out for a PostgreSQL, there just arn't any.

And I don't think its because there arn't any full-time DBAs. The reality is PostgreSQL just doesn't need the same amount of staff that an equal amount of Oracle databases need. The good side, it just works and requires so little maintenence. The bad side? Its hard to sell to companies when they can't have someone full-time on it.

I'm curious with other companies experiences. How many full-time DBAs do you have for Oracle? How many for PostgreSQL?

Replication on PG is no good

[ashpool7]

Slony I requires a primary key on all tables in order to be able to do anything. I have tables that don't have primary keys and I don't want to ever have them. I've normalized my DB and it's the best way to keep track of multiple items for a single person. OIDs are a waste of time in this situation and a cop-out. I don't want to rely on some level of replication that runs on top of the database server, I want it to be part of the database server so everything that works with the DB is aware of replication needs.

Postgres really needs some replication or mirroring mechanism built-in in order to even begin to attract people away from Oracle. The Slony II project will certainly require this level of integration, and I hope it succeeds, even it it takes until PostgeSQL 10.0.

Re:Replication on PG is no good

[bloodnok]

I have used slony-I, Mammoth Replicator, Oracle Advanced Replication, an early version of Oracle Streams in 10g (don't know if it's still called that), and an Oracle third-party replication scheme that I can not currently remember the name of.

Of them all, I would choose slony almost every time. Yes, you have to have a data design with PKs. As a fan or the relational model I think that's generally a good thing. But for those cases where you don't have a PK, slony lets you add one. Painlessly.

I have found building a slony replicated cluster to be way easier than with any other system. I have used slony's switchover in a live environment to upgrade the database, the server and the hardware, with only a 6 minute outage. I administer a 24*7 web-based site and hardly ever have to touch the database or slony.

It's way better than you make out. And if your database design really requires you not to have PKs, then you don't understand relational modelling.

Slony-I does not support multi-master, or synchronous replication. It is not designed to do so. It would be great to have this capability for Postgres but its lack should not be cause to criticise slony-I.

Availability of Source Code? Does it Matter?

[Cranky Weasel]

"I like how I can look at the Postgres source code, so I don't have to call anyone to solve my problem - or I can choose who I call."

In discussions like this, availability of source code always comes up.

I want to know who has a job where they have so much extra time on their hands that they can debug the source code of their database product.

No, seriously. I REALLY want to know. I can't imagine things operating at a pace where this kind of thing is even an option.

The only conclusion is that people who actually do this are either (a) the top .001% of the elite programmers who can do this on the fly, (b) ex-developers from the PostgreSQL team, or (c) nerds in their basement with no time constraints because all they're doing is running their Star Trek fansites with it.

In other news...

[adolfojp]

Next week on Slashdot:

Movers: 18 Wheelers and Pickup Trucks Debate
Grave Diggers: 360 Degree Excavators and Shovels Debate
Firefighters: C-130s and Hoses Debate

Re:Comparisons

[Anonymous Crowhead]

How about a site that shows me objective views Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc. have to offer?

Just go to that site that has the unbiased comparison of emacs vs vi (can't rembember the url), then click on the "Perl vs Ruby vs Python: An Ojective Analysis" link. On that page, there is a link to exactly what you are looking for (It's just under all the "Linux vs Microsoft: TCO" whitepapers.)

Corrections to the article

[einhverfr]

I too have been using PostgreSQL since 6.5. I have experience with every version from 6.5 to the current 8.1....

The article made a number of mistakes or maybe the interviewees were not that knowledgable:

Jim Allen, a longtime Oracle professional and an independent technology consultant, says he has had considerable experience with PostgreSQL 7.4 and 7.5, but not the newest version, 8.0.

7.5 never existed. It was renamed to 8.0 shortly before entering beta. Goes to show how little he knows-- like those people who used to call and ask for tech support for "Windows 97" except a DBA should know better....

On the other hand, Allen was unimpressed by the fact that in PostgreSQL, stored procedure parameters are not typed.

"Everything is passed as strings, even integer arrays," he said.

Huh??? This is plainly incorrect and has been since I have been working on stored procs in it (at least 7.0, maybe 6.5 or earlier). All parameters are typed. They may, however, be presented as text depending on the function and how it is called.

PostgreSQL doesn't behave as nicely as Oracle when the system fills up, Goulet said. In those instances, the system tends to crash quickly.

I assume he is talking about oid/xid wraparound issues. Oid wraparounds fail pretty gracefully. In 8.1, you will get plenty of warnings before the xid wraparound forces a crash. However the crash is there as a safety measure to protect your data-- if the xid was allowed to wraparound, previously committed transactions would become invisible.

The solution to the xid wraparound is simply to do regular mainetnance. With 8.1 the autovacuum capability is integrated into the database backend and so this should never be a problem.

Goulet said that setting up a TCP/IP connection capability with PostgreSQL is hardly an intuitive process. To do it, he says, one needs to modify the postgres.conf and pg_hba.conf files manually.

Prior to 7.4 I think this was the case. With 8.0 and 8.1, only the pg_hba.conf needs to be enabled though you *might* also want to allow the system to listen on addresses other than localhost. In this case, you might need to alter both files.

But then there are webmin plugins etc. that allow you to modify the pg_hba entries from a web interface :-)

Re:I'm not convinced...

[RicRoc]

I'm very happy that our company is using Oracle - it's expensive, that's why! That high expense reflects back on me, in a good way. "The software is valueable, so the people who work with it are valueable". I'm better paid because they chose Oracle over MySQL.

Another thing is the large selection of Oracle training available. The more expensive a thing is, the more training is "worth it" -- even if it is insanely expensive. When I get this training, it is because "I am worth it" -- making me worth more in the process.

And yet another thig is the high level of professionalism surrounding Oracle. Our Oracle DBA is fantastic, he really preaches the right practice, and management listens to him. Because he is an professional Oracle DBA, not some MySQL tweaker.

Personally I would use PostgreSQL, but I'm happy we are using Oracle. Who needs all the features above and beyond ACID compliance? Perversly, it's Oracles high price tag that makes it better for me - personally - at work. I'm not footing the bill, and a bigger budget translates to higher saleries in the field.

I's perverse, but that's how it is.

THIS is how source code availability matters

[WebCowboy]

I want to know who has a job where they have so much extra time on their hands that they can debug the source code of their database product.

Nobody except the active contributers to the RDBMS I'm guessing. Certainly not be. But I'll tell you my personal experience with PostgreSQL and how it being open source directly benefited me:

I was doing a project involving PgSQL many years ago (v6.2 I think) to manage a small inventory database. There was a problem that looked like a bug in PgSQL rather than a configuration issue (I think it was causing VACUUM to fail among other things but my memory fails me). What I clearly remember was how I resolved the issue, and it is the first time that the benefits of open source directly affected me and when I becane clearly sold on open source.

I had given up and since there wasn't a company to turn to I looked for contact emails in what passed for the docs at the time (they are MUCH better now) and on the website. I emailed one of the core developers and described my problem. He emailed me back the next day and thanked me for my feedback and said he had a few other reports of problems somewhat similar to mine. He also ATTACHED THE SOURCE CODE OF THE PATCH he had been working on that was not yet in the release on the website! I applied the patch and recompiled and bingo...it was back to normal!

Now I was (still am) far from a guru C programmer but as with a lot of people I can stumble my way around makefiles and GCC and patches and so forth, and I did have time to recompile PgSQL. I can also (at the instruction of one of the developers) to traces and such and send in the results and THEY can do the debugging with my help. If I was using Microsoft SQL Server and had a similar problem I'd be screwed: I'd have to call clueless tech support, or wander around the KB articles and hope to find the solution, and in this case I'd probably find a useledd KB article along the lines of "Microsoft has acknowledged this to be an issue and will provide a solution in the next available hotfix" telling me to do some kludgy, unacceptable workaround in the meantime, which could be days, or weeks...or maybe even never. I certainly would NEVER have the ear of a Microsoft programmer who wrote or reviewed the code as a lowly intern-type doing a small experimental project.

So there you go...I'm (a) not an "elite programmer", (b) never been part of the PostgreSQL team beyond exchanging emails with a team member, and (c) though some may say I am a nerd I moved out of my parents' home when I was 17 and never lived in their basement. Despite that I have indeed directly benefited from source code availability for software that I did not write.

Re:Oracle's rich feature?

[bakes]

Oracle's rich feature?

You have to be rich to buy Oracle. That's the feature.