InformationWeek has an article with Bruce Momjian, PostgreSQL 8.3 Features To Be Available After Labor Day: Full text search and other features will become available for free download in beta code after Labor Day; with the final release to follow by 8-10 weeks.
Won’t be long now. I probably won’t have time to play with it while it’s in beta but I am looking forward to it. Tsearch2 will be nice and compares to Oracle Text although not quite a feature rich.
For some reason, EnterpriseDB’s PL/SQL debugger is being included.

eHarmony, the large, internet dating site selects Oracle. eHarmony, who call themselves the #1 relationship service, has chosen Oracle to run its websites and data warehouse.

eHarmony uses its patented Compatibility Matching System, developed from 35 years of clinical and empirical research, to match highly compatible singles online. To support the more than 10,000 new users who register each day, eHarmony required a data management solution that would scale to accommodate its growing user base and to help ensure that its site is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Well, the webinar has been done. The recording has been posted to something called Jumpcut. This is video and audio. Check it out and give me feedback.

If that doesn’t play for you, you can watch it on Jumpcut, From Oracle to EnterpriseDB: An Oracle ACE’s Journey.

Thanks,

LewisC

oracle enterprisedb webinar migration video audio

I stumbled across a nice little cheat sheet by someone names Pete Freitag. It’s a PostgreSQL Cheat Sheet. The sheet contains a quick ref for CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE, Adding a primary key, Creating an INDEX, Backing up a database, Running a SQL script, Selecting using a regular expression, Selecting the first N records, Using Prepared Statements, Creating a Function, Vacuum, Reindexing, Showing a query plan, Importing from a file, and some basic SQL statements. It’s not a bad quick ref for newbies.
The site also has cheat sheets for Coldfusion, Java, Apache, ASCII codes, CSS, XHTML, and even an English Grammer Cheat Sheet.

I have had the question several times now so I thought I would blog about. This info was actually covered in the original press release, EnterpriseDB Announces First-Ever Professional-Grade PostgreSQL Distribution for Linux.
Professional-Grade PostgreSQL Distribution

EnterpriseDB Postgres is an open source, pre-configured, certified binary PostgreSQL distribution that simplifies enterprise deployment, eliminating the need to source multiple software components on the Web and manually assemble them. EnterpriseDB Postgres includes a one-click installer that delivers the most commonly needed PostgreSQL components and add-ons for major operating systems, including:

• The most recent General Availability version of PostgreSQL, plus:

• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
• Cryptography (pgCrypto)
• XML Support (libxml)
• Full Text Search (TSearch2)
• Database Linking (DBLink)
• Languages: pl/pgSQL, pl/TCL, pl/Perl
• Database Connectors: ODBC, JDBC

They are also offering support, documentation and forums.
LewisC

postgresql enterprisedb

From GCN.com, Army Corps ready to build on Oracle 11g, Researchers find potentially valuable advances in Web services and working with geographic data.

The Army Corps of Engineers has been beta testing Oracle 11g and is planning to use new Geo-Spatial extensions and 3D data types.

“Our geospatial information and our business information are being dovetailed…more in the same space.” — Michael Smith, Cold Regions Research Engineering Laboratory

In addition to the geospatial data structures, 11g offers other advanced data structures, such as point cloud storage and indexing.

A point cloud is a set of data collection points that represent 3-D space.

InformationWeek has a good interview with Bruce: Open Source PostgreSQL Developer Bruce Momjian Spills The DB Beans.

In the interview, Bruce talks about how he spends one day a week at the EnterpriseDB site but most of his time working on Postgres.

There aren’t a lot of quotes in the interview. I wonder if a longer interview is coming.

There are a few anti-comparisons between “bearded sage” Momjian and JBoss’ Marc Fleury and, of course, the obligatory comparison to MySQL.

PostgreSQL sought to match major relational database systems and afterward addressed performance. “We didn’t focus on performance until the end.

For Basic SQL:

1. How do you convert a date to a string? To_char. A bonus would be that they always include a format mask.
2. What is an aggregate function? Grouping, sums or counts, etc.
3. What is an interval? Specifies a period of time.
4. What is a nested subquery? A subquery in a where clause.
5. What is the dual table? A single row table provided by oracle for selecting values and expressions.

For Basic PL/SQL:

1. Describe the block structure of PLSQL. Declaration, Begin, exception, end.
2. What is an anonymous block?

First, we create the table structure that will act as the master table.

CREATE TABLE sales_range
(salesman_id  integer,
salesman_name text,
sales_amount  integer,
sales_date    timestamp);

Then we create each of the partitioned tables using OO style syntax. Each partitioned table “inherits” the structure of the parent table. There is a string relation between parent and child. You cannot drop the parent without dropping the child.

CREATE TABLE sales_jan2000
  ( CHECK (sales_date < TO_DATE('02/01/2000','MM/DD/YYYY')) )
  INHERITS (sales_range);

CREATE TABLE sales_feb2000
  ( CHECK (sales_date < TO_DATE('03/01/2000','MM/DD/YYYY')) )
  INHERITS (sales_range);

CREATE TABLE sales_mar2000
  ( CHECK (sales_date < TO_DATE('04/01/2000','MM/DD/YYYY')) )
  INHERITS (sales_range);

CREATE TABLE sales_apr2000
  ( CHECK (sales_date < TO_DATE('05/01/2000','MM/DD/YYYY')) )
  INHERITS (sales_range);

At this point, any inserts against the parent table (sales_range) would be inserted into sales_range.

I did the EnterpriseDB Migration webinar today. The webinar was recorded and will be posted on the EnterpriseDB web site. I’ll update this post with a link as soon as it is.

I think it went well. Derek had a family emergency and was not able to participate but his stand-in Matthew Bennett knew his stuff. He did the intro and then the follow up. We both answered questions.

There were some really good questions. I will try to cover some those here, in the future. For now, you can view the powerpoint presentation.

Oracle is joining a Chinese company, Hisense, in creating a development center in southeastern China. The center will concentrate on embedding BerkeleyDB, TimesTen and Oracle Lite in various household appliances, TVs, phone and even cars.

Hisense is a large appliance manufacturer in Eastern China. They make TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines and even personal computers and software.

I have to say, the press release that I am linking below is one of the oddest I have ever seen. The grammar problems are pretty bad.

oracle china embedded appliance

Feature comparisons, in addition to being somewhat lame and almost always biased, are very dependent on versions. If you throw in performance considerations, they are also dependent on hardware and configuration. Even so, I like to read comparisons, for historical information if nothing else.
Here are some comparisons that I have found. I make no recommendations or even commentary about them. Read through them as if you are a database anthropologist. Dig for the nuggets that increase your existing base of knowledge but remember that a human, probably one with an agenda, put these comparisons together.

A question that I am asked very often it exactly what features are compatible between EnterpriseDB and Oracle. The short story is that the areas that you think of as “development”, i.e. SQL, Code, etc are the areas where the compatibility exists.

Maintenance tasks are generally familiar as is the overall architecture. Any modern database will have logging, recovery, backups, etc. In EnterpriseDB, the way you code an application will be compatible with Oracle and the maintenance of an EnterpriseDB database will be familiar.

EnterpriseDB has published a white paper called, Delivering Oracle Compatibility.

Somewhat following on the heels of my post yesterday, Sympathy For The Devil is in the Details, Tim DiChiara of SearchOracle posted The Market Battleground.

Tim mentions that with Oracle’s steady lead (41%) in the database wars, maybe Oracle doesn’t need to worry. He points out though that microsoft, while enjoying a lower market share, is growing at 28% of over 2005 and may pass DB2 in the market.

Tim didn’t even mention open source databases though. Just this week, DBA Village, an Oracle forum/news site, had a poll asking which database most people thought Oracle should worry most about.

I used Yahoo Pipes to create a new PostgreSQL blog aggregator. I am hosting it on squidoo. Check out the Squidoo All About PostgreSQL page.
You can vote for your favorite PostgreSQL book, leave comments and check out postgres and database related products.
BTW, this is the first I have use Yahoo Pipes. It’s very cool and very easy to use. It took me about 10 minutes to use it and about 5 minutes to set up my aggregator. If you have ever used a graphical ETL tool, it looks a lot like that.

Matt Assay has a great blog entry today, Sympathy for the Oracle. He basically describes things I have said many times, Oracle would rule the database world if it adjusted it’s licensing model; Oracle Releases 11g Pricing and A Kinder, Gentler Oracle being two examples of that.

Matt talks about Oracle losing sales to SAP because of the approach to selling. SAP starts with thoughts and ends with execution while Oracle begins at the execution step.

Because open source makes it easier to win the bottom-up war.

I don’t think Oracle needs open source. It already has the best database.

I will be doing a webinar next week, Aug 22 at 1PM Eastern. If you can’t make it in real-time, the webinar will be recorded and will be available for viewing afterwards on the EnterpriseDB.com web site.

The webinar was announced in the EnterpriseDB press release for my book, EnterpriseDB Announces Availability of Definitive Reference Book.

From the press release:

Lewis Cunningham will describe his progression from EnterpriseDB skeptic to advocate in a live Webinar, From Oracle to EnterpriseDB: An Oracle ACE’s Journey, on Wednesday, Aug. 22 at 1:00 p.m. EDT.

A poster on the PostgreSQL pgsql-general mail list asked some good questions that might be important to anyone. The general mail is a:

General discussion area for users. Apart from compile, acceptance test, and bug problems, most new users will probably only be interested in this mailing list (unless they want to contribute to development or documentation). All non-bug related questions regarding PostgreSQL’s version of SQL, and all installation related questions that do not involve bugs or failed compiles, should be restricted to this area. Please note that many of the developers monitor this area.

The poster says he is a long time MySQL user and was switching to PostgreSQL.

EnterpriseDB, the Oracle-compatible database company, today announced that EnterpriseDB Advanced Server has won the LinuxWorld Product Excellence Award for Best Database Solution. EnterpriseDB Advanced Server beat both Oracle 11g and Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite to take the top honor.

“EnterpriseDB uniquely enables enterprises to run applications written for Oracle databases for a tiny fraction of Oracle’s cost,” said Andy Astor, chief executive officer, EnterpriseDB. “We were thrilled in 2005 to have taken the LinuxWorld Product Excellence Award for our industry-changing product and again in 2006 for our continued innovation.

Running on an IBM System p 570 with two dual-core 4.7 GHz POWER6 processors, Oracle Database 10g Release 2 achieved 404,462.54 tpmC (transactions per minute) with a price-performance ratio of $3.50/tpmC — a record achievement in 4-core performance.

“This TPC-C benchmark result, as well as those from the recent two-tier SAP SD Benchmarks, reinforces Oracle Database 10g’s performance and scalability leadership,” said Juan Loaiza, Oracle Senior Vice President Systems Technology. “It also demonstrates that Oracle Database takes full advantage of advances made in servers like IBM’s p 570 to continue providing customers with unprecedented performance and scalability.”

I wonder what 11g will do?

LewisC

oracle benchmark performance

Where do you go when you have a question about Postgres? Do you join one of the PostgreSQL.org mail lists? That is so 1990s, isn’t it? Not that I would recommend signing up for a postgres twitter but how about checking out the EnterpriseDB Postgres Resource Center.
You can get news, downloads, documentation and a support forum. The blurb on the site says:

The EnterpriseDB Postgres Resource Center is a community-based site for enterprise application developers and DBAs and provides a rich repository of technical information, tools, and other resources.

EnterpriseDB has introduced a new feature called the ROI Calculator. The calculator allows you to enter an Oracle configuration and compare the cost to an equivalent EnterpriseDB cost. You can even add extras like the partitioning option, OLAP, Data Mining and Spatial. A nice addition is the ability to enter a discount for Oracle. Most organizations get at least a partial discount on their purchases. The ROI also includes a 5 year support cost which somewhat skews the results (but in a direction you will likely go anyway).

I played with several configurations to see how they compared.

Oracle releases a setup tool (YaST), Data Integrity (DIF Standard Implementation), and the Btrfs (Linux File System) to open source. You can read the press release at theNewsRoom.com.

oracle linux open source

Two must have links: Oracle Linux Download and the Oracle 11g Documentation Homepage.

11g is currently Linux only but I would expect Solaris very shortly and other flavors not long afterwards. I would imagine Windows will be available by year end.

This is awesome. I have SO been waiting for this. Oracle teased me with the “release” on July 11 and it has taken almost a month to actually get the software. Yeah!

LewisC

oracle 11g documentation linux

On Aug 8th, Oracle released a preview of Oracle Authentication Services for Operating Systems, a piece of software within Oracle Fusion that centralizes Identify Management. It integrates with Oracle Internet Directory.

Even though it is called “Oracle Authentication Services for Operating Systems”, it looks like it is only available for Linux at this time. You can get it from the Oracle Unbreakable Linux Network.

“With its hot-pluggable architecture, Oracle Identity Management makes it easier for organizations to incorporate identity and access management capabilities into their Oracle and non-Oracle environments,” said Hasan Rizvi, vice president, Security and Identity Management Products, Oracle.

EnterpriseDB announced at LinuxWorld that they are releasing EnterpriseDB Postgres. This is the open source postgresql with a few items added to make it more of an enterprise class database.
This version of Postgres is targeted to new and occassional users. EnterpriseDB is hoping for wide spread acceptance of PostgreSQL which in turn may mean additional acceptance for EnterpriseDB.
EnterpriseDB Postgres add an easy to use graphical installer, GUI admin tools (web-based), pgAdmin III (a GUI IDE), replication, forums, and downloads for Linux and Windows.
One feature that has had a lot of discussion on the Postgres email list is the installation in Linux.

This is just too cool. Today, EnterpriseDB announced at LinuxWorld that they are offering GridSQL, a data warehouse and OLAP clustering solution. According to the doc, the EnterpriseDB page for GridSQL, the tool offers:

• Quickly and easily create, maintain, and access very large databases for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing applications

• Offload reporting from expensive hardware platforms onto an inexpensive grid of commodity hardware, creating significant savings

• Run reporting and other applications with very large datasets, improving organizational decision-making

• Improve organizational productivity and agility by enabling quick access to large amounts of informationThis is supposed to be a true, shared nothing approach to clustering.

InformationWeek has a good interview with the CIO of GM. Why would I post that on this blog? They interviewed him about Oracle. Yep, General Motors’ CIO Speaks Out On Oracle’s Acquisition Strategy.

I have to ask myself why this is news. Why does what the CIO of a car company have any bearing on Oracle? The interview itself, the questions and answers, make the point.

I’ll let you read the article to get the details but the gist of the interview:

Q: What do do you think of Oracle’s spending spree?
A: Like it.

I’ve been looking. I’ve been waiting. It’s just not out there. At least nothing I found to be particularly interesting. If you hear any good bits, drop me a comment or email me.

I did want to post a link to my article on my Expert’s Guide to Oracle though. Some waste of valuable bandwidth posted a ridiculous entry about Oracle and PHP. Hope fully you find it worthy of a read.

postgresql news oracle php

In2M is a company who makes an online financial productivity and personal spending management system, including MVelopes Personal which won the prestigious 2006 PC World World Class award and was selected as one of the Top 100 Best Products of 2006.

In2M recently switched from an open source database (I’m not sure which) to Oracle Standard Edition. Oracle Standard is the lower tier database (i.e. cheaper) that does not offer additional features such as partitioning or OLAP processing. Notably though, Standard Edition comes with RAC as part of it’s feature set and does not require additional licensing for it.