Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [PERFORM] Postgres VS Oracle

Hello from Paris
I am DBA for Oracle and beginner on Postgres. For an company in France, I
must make a comparative study, between Postgres and Oracle. Can you send any
useful document which can help me.
Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?
Regards

cordialement
david tokmatchi
+33 6 80 89 54 74

On 6/18/07, David Tokmatchi <david(dot)tokmatchi(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
> Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?

Aside from the Wikipedia database comparison, I'm not aware of any
direct PostgreSQL-to-Oracle comparison.

--
Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor | jharris(at)enterprisedb(dot)com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

This document:

http://www-css.fnal.gov/dsg/external/freeware/mysql-vs-pgsql.html

could answer some of your questions.

Igor

________________________________

From: pgsql-admin-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-admin-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of David Tokmatchi
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 11:55 AM
To: pgsql-advocacy(at)postgresql(dot)org; pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org;
pgsql-novice(at)postgresql(dot)org; pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org;
pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: [ADMIN] Postgres VS Oracle

Hello from Paris
I am DBA for Oracle and beginner on Postgres. For an company in France,
I must make a comparative study, between Postgres and Oracle. Can you
send any useful document which can help me.
Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?
Regards

cordialement
david tokmatchi
+33 6 80 89 54 74

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It's even harder, as Oracle disallows publishing benchmark figures in
their license. As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?

Andreas

Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, David Tokmatchi <david(dot)tokmatchi(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
>> Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?
>
> Aside from the Wikipedia database comparison, I'm not aware of any
> direct PostgreSQL-to-Oracle comparison.
>
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On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?

As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?

--
Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor | jharris(at)enterprisedb(dot)com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

David,

First of all, it's considered very rude to cross-post to 5 different mailing
lists. pgsql-advocacy is the right list for this question; please don't post
to more than one list at a time in the future.

> I am DBA for Oracle and beginner on Postgres. For an company in France, I
> must make a comparative study, between Postgres and Oracle. Can you send
> any useful document which can help me.
> Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
> Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?
> Regards

You may not be aware, but we have a large French PostgreSQL community:
www.postgresqlfr.org

I know that Jean-Paul and Dimitri have experience in porting applications, so
you should probably contact them to get local help & information on comparing
the two DBMSes.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>
> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?

Depends? How many times are you going to antagonize the people that ask?

1. It has *nothing* to do with anti-commercial. It is anti-proprietary
which is perfectly legitimate.

2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where people
would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many, many
thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/

> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
> database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where people
> would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many, many
> thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.

Oracle also fears benchmarks made by people who don't know how to tune
Oracle properly...

PFC wrote:
>
>> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
>> database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where
>> people would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many,
>> many thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
>
> Oracle also fears benchmarks made by people who don't know how to
> tune Oracle properly...

Yes that is one argument that is made (and a valid one) but it is
assuredly not the only one that can be made, that would be legitimate.

Joshua D. Drake

>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
>

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/

On 6/18/07, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
> Depends? How many times are you going to antagonize the people that ask?

As many times as necessary. Funny how the anti-proprietary-database
arguments can continue forever and no one brings up the traditional
RTFM-like response of, "hey, this was already discussed in thread XXX,
read that before posting again."

> 1. It has *nothing* to do with anti-commercial. It is anti-proprietary
> which is perfectly legitimate.

As long as closed-mindedness is legitimate, sure.

> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
> database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where people
> would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many, many
> thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.

They may well have a lot to fear, but that doesn't mean they do;
anything statement in that area is pure assumption.

I'm in no way saying we can't compete, I'm just saying that the
continued closed-mindedness and inside-the-box thinking only serves to
perpetuate malcontent toward the proprietary vendors by turning
personal experiences into sacred-mailing-list gospel.

All of us have noticed the anti-MySQL bashing based on problems with
MySQL 3.23... Berkus and others (including yourself, if I am correct),
have corrected people on not making invalid comparisons against
ancient versions. I'm only doing the same where Oracle, IBM, and
Microsoft are concerned.

--
Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor | jharris(at)enterprisedb(dot)com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

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Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>
> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
>

Well, my experience when working with certain DBs is much like I had
some years ago, when I was forced to work with different SCO Unix legacy
boxes. "Why do I have to put up with this silliness?", and with
databases there is no way to get a sensible tool set by "shopping
around" and installing GNU packages en masse :(

Furthermore not being allowed to talk about performance is a real hard
misfeature, like DRM. Consider:

1.) Performance is certainly an important aspect of my work as a DBA.
2.) Gaining experience as a DBA is not trivial, it's clearly a
discipline that cannot be learned from a book, you need experience. As a
developer I can gain experience on my own. As a DBA, I need some nice
hardware and databases that are big enough to be nontrivial.
3.) The above points make it vital to be able to discuss my experiences.
4.) Oracle's license NDA makes exchanging experience harder.

So as an endeffect, the limited number of playing grounds (#2 above)
keeps hourly rates for DBAs high. Oracle's NDA limits secondary
knowledge effects, so in effect it keeps the price for Oracle knowhow
potentially even higher.

Or put bluntly, the NDA mindset benefits completly and only Oracle, and
is a clear drawback for customers. It makes Oracle-supplied consultants
"gods", no matter how much hot air they produce. They've got the benefit
of having internal peer knowledge, and as consumer there is not much
that I can do counter it. I'm not even allowed to document externally
the pitfalls and experiences I've made, so the next poor sob will walk
on the same landmine.

Andreas
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PFC wrote:
>
>> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
>> database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where
>> people would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many,
>> many thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
>
> Oracle also fears benchmarks made by people who don't know how to
> tune Oracle properly...

Well, bad results are as interesting as good results. And this problems
applies to all other databases.

Andreas
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Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
> database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where people
> would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many, many
> thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.

Well, I'm sure that is part of it, perhaps the major part. But part of
also is likely to be avoiding every shlub with a computer doing some
off-the-wall comparison showing X to be 1000 times "better" than Oracle,
SQL Server or DB2; then the corresponding vendor has to spend endless
time and money refuting all these half-baked comparisons.

--
Guy Rouillier

Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
>> Depends? How many times are you going to antagonize the people that ask?
>
> As many times as necessary. Funny how the anti-proprietary-database
> arguments can continue forever and no one brings up the traditional
> RTFM-like response of, "hey, this was already discussed in thread XXX,
> read that before posting again."

Yeah funny how you didn't do that ;) (of course neither did I).

>
>> 1. It has *nothing* to do with anti-commercial. It is anti-proprietary
>> which is perfectly legitimate.
>
> As long as closed-mindedness is legitimate, sure.

It isn't closed minded to consider anti-proprietary a bad thing. It is
an opinion and a valid one. One that many have made part of their lives
in a very pro-commercial and profitable manner.

>
>> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
>> database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where people
>> would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many, many
>> thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
>
> They may well have a lot to fear, but that doesn't mean they do;
> anything statement in that area is pure assumption.

95% of life is assumption. Some of it based on experience, some of it
based on pure conjecture, some based on all kinds of other things.

>
> I'm in no way saying we can't compete, I'm just saying that the
> continued closed-mindedness and inside-the-box thinking only serves to
> perpetuate malcontent toward the proprietary vendors by turning
> personal experiences into sacred-mailing-list gospel.

It is amazing how completely misguided you are in this response. I
haven't said anything closed minded. I only responded to your rather
antagonistic response to a reasonably innocuous question of: "As a
cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing? "

It is a good question to ask, and a good question to discuss.

>
> All of us have noticed the anti-MySQL bashing based on problems with
> MySQL 3.23... Berkus and others (including yourself, if I am correct),
> have corrected people on not making invalid comparisons against
> ancient versions. I'm only doing the same where Oracle, IBM, and
> Microsoft are concerned.

I haven't seen any bashing going on yet. Shall we start with the closed
mindedness and unfairness of per cpu license and support models?

Joshua D. Drake

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/

On 6/18/07, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
> Yeah funny how you didn't do that ;) (of course neither did I).

I agree, an oops on my part :)

> It is amazing how completely misguided you are in this response. I
> haven't said anything closed minded. I only responded to your rather
> antagonistic response to a reasonably innocuous question of: "As a
> cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing? "

I wasn't responding to you, just to the seemingly closed-mindedness of
the original question/statement. We're all aware of the reasons, for
and against, proprietary system licenses prohibiting benchmarking.

> It is a good question to ask, and a good question to discuss.

Certainly, but can one expect to get a realistic answer to an, "is
Oracle fearing something" question on he PostgreSQL list? Or was it
just a backhanded attempt at pushing the topic again? My vote is for
the latter; it served no purpose other than to push the
competitiveness topic again.

> I haven't seen any bashing going on yet. Shall we start with the closed
> mindedness and unfairness of per cpu license and support models?

Not preferably, you make me type too much :)

--
Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor | jharris(at)enterprisedb(dot)com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

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Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>
> All of us have noticed the anti-MySQL bashing based on problems with
> MySQL 3.23... Berkus and others (including yourself, if I am correct),
> have corrected people on not making invalid comparisons against
> ancient versions. I'm only doing the same where Oracle, IBM, and
> Microsoft are concerned.
>

My, my, I fear my asbestos are trying to feel warm inside ;)

Well, there is not much MySQL bashing going around. And MySQL 5 has
enough "features" and current MySQL AB support for it is so "good", that
there is no need to bash MySQL based on V3 problems. MySQL5 is still a
joke, and one can quite safely predict the answers to tickets, with well
over 50% guess rate.

(Hint: I don't consider the answer: "Redo your schema" to be a
satisfactory answer. And philosophically, the query optimizer in MySQL
is near perfect. OTOH, considering the fact that many operations in
MySQL still have just one way to execute, it's easy to choose the
fastest plan, isn't it *g*)

Andreas
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(cut down the reply-tos)

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> PFC wrote:
>
>>
>>> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
>>> database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where
>>> people would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many,
>>> many thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
>>
>>
>> Oracle also fears benchmarks made by people who don't know how to
>> tune Oracle properly...
>
>
> Yes that is one argument that is made (and a valid one) but it is
> assuredly not the only one that can be made, that would be legitimate.
>

Given how many bogus MySQL vr.s Postgresql benchmarks I've seen, where
Postgres is running untuned "out of the box", it's a sufficient reasons,
IMHO.

Brian

All,

On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 07:50:22PM +0200, Andreas Kostyrka wrote:

[something]

It would appear that this was the flame-fest that was predicted.
Particularly as this has been copied to five lists. If you all want
to have an argument about what Oracle should or should not do, could
you at least limit it to one list?

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
--Jane Jacobs

On 6/18/07, Andrew Sullivan <ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca> wrote:
> It would appear that this was the flame-fest that was predicted.
> Particularly as this has been copied to five lists. If you all want
> to have an argument about what Oracle should or should not do, could
> you at least limit it to one list?

Yeah, Josh B. asked it to be toned down to the original list which
should've been involved. Which I think should be pgsql-admin or
pgsql-advocacy... your thoughts?

I think the Oracle discussion is over, David T. just needs URL references IMHO.

--
Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor | jharris(at)enterprisedb(dot)com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

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Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> Certainly, but can one expect to get a realistic answer to an, "is
> Oracle fearing something" question on he PostgreSQL list? Or was it
> just a backhanded attempt at pushing the topic again? My vote is for
> the latter; it served no purpose other than to push the
> competitiveness topic again.

Well, I'm a cynic at heart, really. So there was no bad intend behind it.

And it was a nice comment, because I would base it on my personal
experiences with certain vendors, it wouldn't be near as nice.

The original question was about comparisons between PG and Oracle.

Now, I could answer this question from my personal experiences with the
product and support. That would be way more stronger worded than my
small cynic question.

Another thing, Joshua posted a guesstimate that PG can compete in 90-95%
cases with Oracle. Because Oracle insists on secrecy, I'm somehow
inclined to believe the side that talks openly. And while I don't like
to question Joshua's comment, I think he overlooked one set of problems,
namely the cases where Oracle is not able to compete with PG. It's hard
to quantify how many of these cases there are performance-wise, well,
because Oracle insists on that silly NDA, but there are clearly cases
where PG is superior.

Andreas
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On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 02:16:56PM -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> pgsql-advocacy... your thoughts?

I've picked -advocacy.

>
> I think the Oracle discussion is over, David T. just needs URL references
> IMHO.

I don't think we can speak about Oracle; if we were licenced, we'd be
violating it, and since we're not, we can't possibly know about it,
right ;-) But there are some materials about why to use Postgres on
the website:

http://www.postgresql.org/about/advantages

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do sir?
--attr. John Maynard Keynes

On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 02:38:32PM -0400, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> I've picked -advocacy.

Actually, I _had_ picked advocacy, but had an itchy trigger finger.
Apologies, all.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
A certain description of men are for getting out of debt, yet are
against all taxes for raising money to pay it off.
--Alexander Hamilton

> > Depends? How many times are you going to antagonize the people that ask?
> As many times as necessary. Funny how the anti-proprietary-database
> arguments can continue forever and no one brings up the traditional
> RTFM-like response of, "hey, this was already discussed in thread XXX,
> read that before posting again."

Hey! I was about to! :)

As an Informix/DB2 admin I can tell you that those forums/lists get
pounded with the same kind of crap. My take: It is a bad policy, so
hound the vendor, and leave the rest of us alone. Convincing or not
convincing me isn't going to move the cause.

And now the rule of not cross-posting has been broken... commence the
downward spiral!

> > 1. It has *nothing* to do with anti-commercial. It is anti-proprietary
> > which is perfectly legitimate.
> As long as closed-mindedness is legitimate, sure.
> > 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
> > database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where people
> > would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many, many
> > thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
> They may well have a lot to fear, but that doesn't mean they do;
> anything statement in that area is pure assumption.

Yep, and the 90-95% number is straight out-of-the-air. And I believe
that exactly 17 angels can dance on the head of a pin.

--
Adam Tauno Williams, Network & Systems Administrator
Consultant - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com
Developer - http://www.opengroupware.org

On Jun 18, 10:55 am, david(dot)tokmat(dot)(dot)(dot)(at)gmail(dot)com ("David Tokmatchi")
wrote:
> Hello from Paris
> I am DBA for Oracle and beginner on Postgres. For an company in France, I
> must make a comparative study, between Postgres and Oracle. Can you send any
> useful document which can help me.
> Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
> Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?
> Regards
>
> cordialement
> david tokmatchi
> +33 6 80 89 54 74

This is good to know:

"Comparison of different SQL implementations"
http://troels.arvin.dk/db/rdbms/

PFC wrote:
>
>> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of a
>> database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where
>> people would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many,
>> many thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
>
> Oracle also fears benchmarks made by people who don't know how to
> tune Oracle properly...
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> match
>
Then Oracle fears its users, which explains the "no-benchmark" policy,
which I cannot see any PR honk being able to spin that in any way that
doesn't make Oracle look like it's hiding its head in the sand.

--
The NCP Revue -- http://www.ncprevue.com/blog

On 6/18/07, John Meyer <john(dot)l(dot)meyer(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Then Oracle fears its users, which explains the "no-benchmark" policy,
> which I cannot see any PR honk being able to spin that in any way that
> doesn't make Oracle look like it's hiding its head in the sand.

The humor I see in constant closed-minded presumptions is slowly fading.

--
Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor | jharris(at)enterprisedb(dot)com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

I am new to Postgresql Database. My setup is backend is postgresql
database, frontend is Java(JDBC). I installed the postgres in windows
platform. Now I want to setup server and client configuration. Kindly
guide me how to set the configuration parameters, in server and client
machines. Waiting for your fav reply.

Thanks & Regards
Jayakumar M

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Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, John Meyer <john(dot)l(dot)meyer(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> Then Oracle fears its users, which explains the "no-benchmark" policy,
>> which I cannot see any PR honk being able to spin that in any way that
>> doesn't make Oracle look like it's hiding its head in the sand.
>
> The humor I see in constant closed-minded presumptions is slowly fading.
>

This isn't even a straight out slam at Oracle. My degree comes in mass
communications, and I cannot understand how anybody could shake the
perception that Oracle is afraid of open, independent investigations of
its programs.
Let's take this at the most beneficial angle that we can, and that is
that Oracle has seen too many people run their programs straight into
the ground with some rather lousy benchmarking. If that's the case,
then the solution is not to bar each and every bench mark out there, it
is to publish the methodologies to properly tune an Oracle installation.
It is not to attempt to strangle conversation.

--
The NCP Revue -- http://www.ncprevue.com/blog

Jayakumar_Mukundaraju wrote:
>
> I am new to Postgresql Database. My setup is backend is postgresql
> database, frontend is Java(JDBC). I installed the postgres in windows
> platform. Now I want to setup server and client configuration. Kindly
> guide me how to set the configuration parameters, in server and client
> machines. Waiting for your fav reply.

These should contain all you need:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/index.html
http://jdbc.postgresql.org/documentation/82/index.html
http://jdbc.postgresql.org/development/privateapi/index.html

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 13:02 -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
> > As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>
> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
>

As a nudist, I think I have to answer, "About every 9 weeks, it would
seem".

Andy

I don't want to add gas to the flamewar, but I gotta ask. What is in
the the 90 to 95% referred to in this email.

Carol
On Jun 18, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
>>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
>> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
>
> Depends? How many times are you going to antagonize the people that
> ask?
>
> 1. It has *nothing* to do with anti-commercial. It is anti-
> proprietary which is perfectly legitimate.
>
> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of
> a database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where
> people would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many,
> many thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Joshua D. Drake
>
> --
>
> === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
> Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
> Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
> http://www.commandprompt.com/
>
> Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/
> donate
> PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so that
> your
> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly

Στις Τρίτη 19 Ιούνιος 2007 15:39, ο/η Carol Walter έγραψε:
> I don't want to add gas to the flamewar, but I gotta ask. What is in
> the the 90 to 95% referred to in this email.

short answer: all cases, possibly except when running a Bank or something
similar.

>
> Carol
>
> On Jun 18, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> >> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
> >>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
> >>
> >> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
> >> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
> >
> > Depends? How many times are you going to antagonize the people that
> > ask?
> >
> > 1. It has *nothing* to do with anti-commercial. It is anti-
> > proprietary which is perfectly legitimate.
> >
> > 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of
> > a database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where
> > people would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many,
> > many thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Joshua D. Drake
> >
> > --
> >
> > === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
> > Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
> > Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
> > http://www.commandprompt.com/
> >
> > Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/
> > donate
> > PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of
> > broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so that
> > your
> > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> match

--
Achilleas Mantzios

Andrew Kelly wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 13:02 -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
>>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
>> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
>>
>
> As a nudist, I think I have to answer, "About every 9 weeks, it would
> seem".

Jeese! You could have forwarned us to shut our eyes!

--
Until later, Geoffrey

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

Andrew Kelly wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 13:02 -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
>>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
>> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
>>
>
> As a nudist, I think I have to answer, "About every 9 weeks, it would
> seem".

Jeese! You could have warned us to shield our eyes!

--
Until later, Geoffrey

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

Can we please trim this down to just advocacy?

On Jun 18, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
>>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
>> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
>
> Depends? How many times are you going to antagonize the people that
> ask?
>
> 1. It has *nothing* to do with anti-commercial. It is anti-
> proprietary which is perfectly legitimate.
>
> 2. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM have a "lot" to fear in the sense of
> a database like PostgreSQL. We can compete in 90-95% of cases where
> people would traditionally purchase a proprietary system for many,
> many thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Joshua D. Drake
>
> --
>
> === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
> Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
> Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
> http://www.commandprompt.com/
>
> Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/
> donate
> PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so that
> your
> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>

--
Jim Nasby jim(at)nasby(dot)net
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)

On 6/19/07, Jim Nasby <decibel(at)decibel(dot)org> wrote:
> Can we please trim this down to just advocacy?

Could you please verify that we hadn't before replying to almost
24-hour old mail?

--
Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor | jharris(at)enterprisedb(dot)com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

Josh Berkus wrote:
> David,
>
> First of all, it's considered very rude to cross-post to 5 different mailing
> lists. pgsql-advocacy is the right list for this question; please don't post
> to more than one list at a time in the future.
>
>> I am DBA for Oracle and beginner on Postgres. For an company in France, I
>> must make a comparative study, between Postgres and Oracle. Can you send
>> any useful document which can help me.
>> Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
>> Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?
>> Regards
>
> You may not be aware, but we have a large French PostgreSQL community:
> www.postgresqlfr.org
>
> I know that Jean-Paul and Dimitri have experience in porting applications, so
> you should probably contact them to get local help & information on comparing
> the two DBMSes.

I'm not French but I've written a few web apps that used both PostgreSQL and
Oracle, among others, as back ends. That is, the same app was deployed to
both RDBMSes. We had very small data sets, so I cannot speak authoritatively
about high-end performance or scalability. My main concerns were SQL
compatibility and completeness, ease of development and ease of database
administration.

Oracle and PostgreSQL came out about even on SQL compatibility and
completeness. I do not know where either has an advantage. Moving DDL
between the two was a matter of knowing that PostgreSQL calls CLOB "TEXT" and
BLOB "BYTEA" - annoying but not fatal. Working in Java there is no difference
between the SQL or JDBC calls once the database is up.

I particularly look for features like subSELECTs anywhere SQL allows them,
complete JOIN syntax, and literal row expressions
("( 'Smith', 30, 0, 'Mr.')"). Both systems are excellent in this regard.

Ease of development has to do with tools like psql. PostgreSQL is easier for
me to use. Oracle has these huge and somewhat opaque tools, from my point of
view. Oracle's tools seem to me geared primarily for folks who manage
enterprise databases and probably aren't intended as much for the lowly
programmer during app development.

For maintenance I find Postgres much easier. Oracle's tools and procedures,
installation style and the like have much more of a "big iron" feel to them,
which might lead one to wonder if PostgreSQL is lackadaisical about enterprise
db maintenance. It is not. AFAICS either product gives the DBA everything
needed to keep that terabyte data store humming. The learning bump for
PostgreSQL looks much smaller to me, though.

At the low end PostgreSQL is clearly superior. I am much more able to
effectively manage small- to moderate-load databases without being a fully
expert DBA using PostgreSQL. I am not experienced at managing large-scale
databases but on the smaller scale I've done a bit, and PostgeSQL is much
lighter-weight on the practitioner's mind.

YMMV.

--
Lew

John Meyer wrote:
>>> make Oracle look like it's hiding its head in the sand.

One of my grammatical bugbears is the misuse of "its" and "it's". I got quite
the thrill from seeing their correct use both within the same phrase. Thank you.

Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>> The humor I see in constant closed-minded presumptions is slowly fading.

Instead of engaing in /ad hominem/ attack ("you're close-minded, therefore
your assertions are false" - /non sequitur/ - even close-minded assertions can
be true irrespective of the level of presumption and completely irrespective
of your attempt to spin them as jokes) why not address the claim on its merits?

John Meyer wrote:
> This isn't even a straight out slam at Oracle. My degree comes in mass
> communications, and I cannot understand how anybody could shake the
> perception that Oracle is afraid of open, independent investigations of
> its programs.

Not that anecdotal evidence constitutes proof, but I certainly perceive their
closed-mouthed and restrictive policy in that light. Why hide the facts
unless you have something to hide?

> Let's take this at the most beneficial angle that we can, and that is
> that Oracle has seen too many people run their programs straight into
> the ground with some rather lousy benchmarking. If that's the case,
> then the solution is not to bar each and every bench mark out there, it
> is to publish the methodologies to properly tune an Oracle installation.
> It is not to attempt to strangle conversation.

Openness promotes progress and growth - it's true in accounting, legal
systems, software development and marketing, not to say everyday living.

Oracle would only benefit from an open conversation.

--
Lew

Josh Berkus wrote:
> David,
>
> First of all, it's considered very rude to cross-post to 5 different mailing
> lists. pgsql-advocacy is the right list for this question; please don't post
> to more than one list at a time in the future.
>
>> I am DBA for Oracle and beginner on Postgres. For an company in France, I
>> must make a comparative study, between Postgres and Oracle. Can you send
>> any useful document which can help me.
>> Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
>> Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?
>> Regards
>
> You may not be aware, but we have a large French PostgreSQL community:
> www.postgresqlfr.org
>
> I know that Jean-Paul and Dimitri have experience in porting applications, so
> you should probably contact them to get local help & information on comparing
> the two DBMSes.

I'm not French but I've written a few web apps that used both PostgreSQL and
Oracle, among others, as back ends. That is, the same app was deployed to
both RDBMSes. We had very small data sets, so I cannot speak authoritatively
about high-end performance or scalability. My main concerns were SQL
compatibility and completeness, ease of development and ease of database
administration.

Oracle and PostgreSQL came out about even on SQL compatibility and
completeness. I do not know where either has an advantage. Moving DDL
between the two was a matter of knowing that PostgreSQL calls CLOB "TEXT" and
BLOB "BYTEA" - annoying but not fatal. Working in Java there is no difference
between the SQL or JDBC calls once the database is up.

I particularly look for features like subSELECTs anywhere SQL allows them,
complete JOIN syntax, and literal row expressions
("( 'Smith', 30, 0, 'Mr.')"). Both systems are excellent in this regard.

Ease of development has to do with tools like psql. PostgreSQL is easier for
me to use. Oracle has these huge and somewhat opaque tools, from my point of
view. Oracle's tools seem to me geared primarily for folks who manage
enterprise databases and probably aren't intended as much for the lowly
programmer during app development.

For maintenance I find Postgres much easier. Oracle's tools and procedures,
installation style and the like have much more of a "big iron" feel to them,
which might lead one to wonder if PostgreSQL is lackadaisical about enterprise
db maintenance. It is not. AFAICS either product gives the DBA everything
needed to keep that terabyte data store humming. The learning bump for
PostgreSQL looks much smaller to me, though.

At the low end PostgreSQL is clearly superior. I am much more able to
effectively manage small- to moderate-load databases without being a fully
expert DBA using PostgreSQL. I am not experienced at managing large-scale
databases but on the smaller scale I've done a bit, and PostgreSQL is much
lighter-weight on the practitioner's mind.

YMMV.

--
Lew

walterc(at)indiana(dot)edu (Carol Walter) writes:
> I don't want to add gas to the flamewar, but I gotta ask. What is in
> the the 90 to 95% referred to in this email.

I'd say, look at the Oracle feature set for things that it has that
PostgreSQL doesn't.

Four that come to mind:

- ORAC = multimaster replication
- Integration with hardware vendors' High Availability systems
- Full fledged table partitioning
- Windowing functions (SQL:2003 stuff, used in OLAP)

These are features Truly Needed for a relatively small percentage of
systems. They're typically NOT needed for:

- departmental applications that operate during office hours
- light weight web apps that aren't challenging the limits of
the most expensive hardware
- any application where reliability requirements do not warrant
spending $1M to make it more reliable
- applications that make relatively unsophisticated use of data
(e.g. - it's not worth the analysis to figure out a partitioning
design, and nobody's running queries so sophisticated that they
need windowing analytics)

I expect both of those lists are incomplete, but those are big enough
lists to, I think, justify the claim, at least in loose terms.

The most important point is that third one, I think:
"any application where reliability requirements do not warrant
spending $1M to make it more reliable"

Adopting ORAC and/or other HA technologies makes it necessary to spend
a Big Pile Of Money, on hardware and the humans to administer it.

Any system whose importance is not sufficient to warrant *actually
spending* an extra $1M on improving its reliability is *certain* NOT
to benefit from either ORAC or HA, because you can't get any relevant
benefits without spending pretty big money. Maybe the number is lower
than $1M, but I think that's the right order of magnitude.
--
output = reverse("ofni.secnanifxunil" "@" "enworbbc")
http://linuxdatabases.info/info/nonrdbms.html
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where
the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh

achill(at)matrix(dot)gatewaynet(dot)com (Achilleas Mantzios) writes:
>> I don't want to add gas to the flamewar, but I gotta ask. What is in
>> the the 90 to 95% referred to in this email.
>
> short answer: all cases, possibly except when running a Bank or something
> similar.

No, it's not to do with what enterprise you're running; the question
is what functionality is missing.

At the simplest level, I'd say that there are Oracle (+DB2) feature
sets that *are compelling*, particularly in the High Availability
area.

However, those feature sets are ones that require spending a Big Pile
Of Money (BPOM) to enable them.

For instance, ORAC (multimaster replication) requires buying a bunch
of servers and spending a BPOM configuring and administering them.

If you haven't got the BPOM, or your application isn't so "mission
critical" as to justify budgeting a BPOM, then, simply put, you won't
be using ORAC functionality, and that discards one of the major
justifications for buying Oracle.

*NO* small business has that BPOM to spend on this, so *NO* database
operated by a small business can possibly justify "buying Oracle
because of ORAC."

There will be a lot of "departmental" sorts of applications that:

- Aren't that mission critical

- Don't have data models so sophisticated as to require the "features
at the edges" of the big name commercial DBMSes (e.g. - partitioning,
OLAP/Windowing features) that PostgreSQL currently lacks

and those two categorizations, it seems to me, likely define a
frontier that allow a whole lot of databases to fall into the "don't
need the Expensive Guys" region.
--
"cbbrowne","@","cbbrowne.com"
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/oses.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #219. "I will be selective in the hiring of
assassins. Anyone who attempts to strike down the hero the first
instant his back is turned will not even be considered for the job."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>

On Tuesday 19 June 2007 00:05, John Meyer wrote:
> Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> > On 6/18/07, John Meyer <john(dot)l(dot)meyer(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >> Then Oracle fears its users, which explains the "no-benchmark" policy,
> >> which I cannot see any PR honk being able to spin that in any way that
> >> doesn't make Oracle look like it's hiding its head in the sand.
> >
> > The humor I see in constant closed-minded presumptions is slowly fading.
>
> This isn't even a straight out slam at Oracle. My degree comes in mass
> communications, and I cannot understand how anybody could shake the
> perception that Oracle is afraid of open, independent investigations of
> its programs.
> Let's take this at the most beneficial angle that we can, and that is
> that Oracle has seen too many people run their programs straight into
> the ground with some rather lousy benchmarking. If that's the case,
> then the solution is not to bar each and every bench mark out there, it
> is to publish the methodologies to properly tune an Oracle installation.
> It is not to attempt to strangle conversation.

You do realize that not everyone who publishes a benchmark will actually
*want* to do a fair comparison, right?

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

> The most important point is that third one, I think:
> "any application where reliability requirements do not warrant
> spending $1M to make it more reliable"
>
> Adopting ORAC and/or other HA technologies makes it necessary to spend
> a Big Pile Of Money, on hardware and the humans to administer it.

If I were CIO that did not follow the Postgres groups regularly, I would
take that to mean that Oracle is automatically more reliable than PG
because you can spend a BPOM to make it so.

Let's ask a different question. If you take BPOM / 2, and instead of
buying Oracle, hire consultants to work on a PG solution, could the PG
solution achieve the same reliability as Oracle? Would it take the same
amount of time? Or heck, spend the full BPOM on hardening PG against
failure - could PG achieve that reliability?

Or, by spending BPOM for Oracle strictly to get that reliability, are you
only buying "enterpriseyness" (i.e. someone to blame and the ability to
one-up a buddy at the golf course)?

Cheers,
-J

josh(at)globalherald(dot)net (Joshua_Kramer) writes:
>> The most important point is that third one, I think:
>> "any application where reliability requirements do not warrant
>> spending $1M to make it more reliable"
>>
>> Adopting ORAC and/or other HA technologies makes it necessary to
>> spend a Big Pile Of Money, on hardware and the humans to administer
>> it.
>
> If I were CIO that did not follow the Postgres groups regularly, I
> would take that to mean that Oracle is automatically more reliable
> than PG because you can spend a BPOM to make it so.

That would be incorrect.

In cases where you *do not* spend the BPOM, there is not any
particular evidence available to indicate that Oracle is, in any
interesting way, more reliable than PostgreSQL.

How many CIOs check into the PostgreSQL advocacy group, just to pick
out one article?

> Let's ask a different question. If you take BPOM / 2, and instead of
> buying Oracle, hire consultants to work on a PG solution, could the PG
> solution achieve the same reliability as Oracle? Would it take the
> same amount of time? Or heck, spend the full BPOM on hardening PG
> against failure - could PG achieve that reliability?
>
> Or, by spending BPOM for Oracle strictly to get that reliability, are
> you only buying "enterpriseyness" (i.e. someone to blame and the
> ability to one-up a buddy at the golf course)?

The major difference, as far as I can see, is that if you spend BPOM
on Oracle, then you can take advantage of some High Availability
features for Oracle that haven't been implemented for PostgreSQL.

On the one hand...
- If you spend LESS THAN the BPOM, then you don't get anything.

On the other hand...
- If you spend SPOM (Some Pile Of Money ;-)) on hardening a PostgreSQL
instance, you may be able to get some improved reliability, but not in
the form of specific features (e.g. - ORAC) that 'smell like a
product.'

On the gripping hand...
- It is not entirely clear to what degree you can be certain to be
getting anything better than "enterpriseyness."

For instance, if your disk array blows up (or has a microcode bug
that makes it scribble randomly on disk), then that is liable to
destroy your database, irrespective of what other technologies are
in use as a result of spending the BPOM.

In other words, some risks are certain to be retained, and fancy
DBMS features can't necessarily mitigate them.
--
output = reverse("ofni.secnanifxunil" "@" "enworbbc")
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/wp.html
"We are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need
mending." --/Moby-Dick/, Ch 17

> That would be incorrect.

Factually, you are correct that it's incorrect. I'm talking about the
perception.

> How many CIOs check into the PostgreSQL advocacy group, just to pick
> out one article?

Few that I know of, which makes my point stronger and brings us to this:

> instance, you may be able to get some improved reliability, but not in
> the form of specific features (e.g. - ORAC) that 'smell like a
> product.'

So, on one hand you can pay BPOM to Oracle for all the enterpriseyness and
fresh NOS (New Oracle Smell) money can buy. Or...

> In other words, some risks are certain to be retained, and fancy
> DBMS features can't necessarily mitigate them.

...you can pay SSPOM (Some Smaller Pile Of Money) to a PG vendor to harden
PG. You won't get the enterprisey NOS, but the end result will be the
same. The question then becomes, what are the second-level costs? (i.e.,
will high-reliability project X complete just as fast by hardening PG as
it would by using Oracle's built-in features? What are the costs to train
Oracle DBA's on PG - or what are the costs of their downtime while they
learn PG?)

Cheers,
-J

Chris Browne wrote:
> josh(at)globalherald(dot)net (Joshua_Kramer) writes:
>>> The most important point is that third one, I think:
>>> "any application where reliability requirements do not warrant
>>> spending $1M to make it more reliable"
>>>
>>> Adopting ORAC and/or other HA technologies makes it necessary to
>>> spend a Big Pile Of Money, on hardware and the humans to administer
>>> it.
>> If I were CIO that did not follow the Postgres groups regularly, I
>> would take that to mean that Oracle is automatically more reliable
>> than PG because you can spend a BPOM to make it so.
>
> That would be incorrect.
>
> In cases where you *do not* spend the BPOM, there is not any
> particular evidence available to indicate that Oracle is, in any
> interesting way, more reliable than PostgreSQL.

No but there is perception which is quite a bit more powerful.

Joshua D. Drake

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/

On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 17:55 +0200, David Tokmatchi wrote:

> I am DBA for Oracle and beginner on Postgres. For an company in
> France, I must make a comparative study, between Postgres and Oracle.
> Can you send any useful document which can help me.
> Scalability ? Performance? Benchmark ? Availability ? Architecture ?
> Limitation : users, volumes ? Resouces needed ? Support ?

I would suggest you make your comparison based upon your specific needs,
not a purely abstract comparison. If your not sure what your
requirements are, research those first.

--
Simon Riggs
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 11:22:17AM -0400, Chris Browne wrote:
> In cases where you *do not* spend the BPOM, there is not any
> particular evidence available to indicate that Oracle is, in any
> interesting way, more reliable than PostgreSQL.

I hate to say this, but as true as the above is, it has very close to
zero relevance to the way most senior managers make decisions.

It appears to suppose that the way decisions are usually made is
something like this: 1. Establish the problem; 2. Identify what is
needed to solve the problem; 3. Evaluate what available technologies
meet the requirements established in step 2.

The _actual_ way corporate decisions are made is mostly gut feel. The
simple truth is that most senior managers, even CIOs and CTOs, are
usually long past the period where technical detail is meaningful to
them. They do not -- and probably should not -- know many of the
details of the problems they are nevertheless responsible for
solving. Instead, they have to weigh costs and benefits, on the
basis of poor evidence and without enough time to get the proper
evidence. Geeks who hang out here would probably be appalled at the
slapdash sort of evidence that undergirds large numbers of big
technical decisions. But CIOs and CTOs aren't evaluating technology;
they're mitigating risk.

Once you understand that risk mitigation is practically the only job
they have, then buying Oracle in most cases is a no-brainer. It has
the best reputation, and has all these features (some of which you
might not buy, but _could_ if your Oracle rep were to tell you it
would solve some problem you may or may not have) to protect you.
So, the only other calculation that should enter the picture is how
much money you have to spend, and how risky it would be to tie that
up in Oracle licenses. In some cases, that turns out to be too risky,
and Postgres becomes a viable choice. It's only exceptionally
visionary senior managers who operate in other ways.

There are two important consequences of this. One is that competing
with MySQL is worth it, because MySQL is often regarded as the thing
one uses to "go cheap" when one can't afford Oracle. Those people
will move from MySQL to Oracle as soon as practical, because their
DBAs often are appalled at the way MySQL works; they might get
addicted to the excellent features of PostgreSQL, though. The second
is that marketing to management by using arguments, listing lots of
technical detail and features, and the like, will never work.
They'll ignore such cluttered and crowded brochures, because they
don't deal in technical detail. We have to make PostgreSQL a
low-risk choice for them.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
The plural of anecdote is not data.
--Roger Brinner

On Wednesday 20 June 2007, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 11:22:17AM -0400, Chris Browne wrote:
> > In cases where you *do not* spend the BPOM, there is not any
> > particular evidence available to indicate that Oracle is, in any
> > interesting way, more reliable than PostgreSQL.
>
> I hate to say this, but as true as the above is, it has very close to
> zero relevance to the way most senior managers make decisions.

[...]

I also hate to say this, but I fully agree with whatever you wrote in this
mail.

[...]

> much money you have to spend, and how risky it would be to tie that
> up in Oracle licenses. In some cases, that turns out to be too risky,
> and Postgres becomes a viable choice. It's only exceptionally
> visionary senior managers who operate in other ways.

Yes, maybe 10 out of 100. Likely less.

[...]
> addicted to the excellent features of PostgreSQL, though. The second
> is that marketing to management by using arguments, listing lots of
> technical detail and features, and the like, will never work.
> They'll ignore such cluttered and crowded brochures, because they
> don't deal in technical detail. We have to make PostgreSQL a
> low-risk choice for them.

I wonder if this is something which really is a job of the core team or
community (I think of the 'traditional' PG users who are more technically
focussed and maybe not enthusiastic about too much CIO/CTO flavored
communication). Actually this kind of communication looks to me like to be
perfectly done by commercial PG vendors?

Anastasios

On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 07:57:58PM +0200, Anastasios Hatzis wrote:
> focussed and maybe not enthusiastic about too much CIO/CTO flavored
> communication). Actually this kind of communication looks to me like to be
> perfectly done by commercial PG vendors?

Well, sure, but I sort of assume that the -advocacy list has
subscribed to it only people who are interested in promoting
PostgreSQL. So I figure that this group probably needs to think
about the audiences for its output; and C*O people make up one of
them.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
The fact that technology doesn't work is no bar to success in the marketplace.
--Philip Greenspun

Andrew Kelly wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 13:02 -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>
>> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
>>
>>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>>>
>> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
>> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
>>
>>
>
> As a nudist, I think I have to answer, "About every 9 weeks, it would
> seem".

As a surrealist, I'd have to say purple.