Re: Benchmarking PostgreSQL against others on Windows?

[Tom Allison <tom(at)tacocat(dot)net>]

operationsengineer1(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:
> > I am working on the Windows platform and I have
> > mainly used
> > MSSQLServer 2000 for database stuff.
> >
> > Now I am looking at alternatives and one is
> > PostgreSQL, another MySql.
> > Can anyone point me towards a report from a decent
> > benchmarking test
> > showing the pros and cons of these servers?
> > I assume someone has done it already....
> > I am mostly interested in servers running on Windows
> > since that is our
> > main target platform.
> >
> > Bo Berglund
>
> Bo, make sure the benchmarks are equal.  There is a
> file system or something in mysql that is optional,
> but required to do transactions (perhaps other
> functionality, too).
>
> make sure pgsql is compared to that version of mysql.

Somewhere I found a link for doing a number of database comparisons.

Basically it comes down to this:
simple SELECT statements: mysql almost always wins.
Everything else is mixed.
There are a few cases where postgresql does really poorly but the operations are 
rare daily activity.
INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE postgresql "generally" does better.

The problem with the tests is that these are typically done with single users at 
a time and they don't exercise any of the other benefits that postgresql offers. 
 But I would suggest you set up two versions of some aspect of your working 
environment: one in postgres and on in MySQL and run them for a few weeks using 
mock client scripts to perform different actions.

The real money comes when you have to maintain the database and manage 
concurrent users.  Do things that are "bad" for databases and see who comes out 
on top.  Like lots of concurrent operations against the same tables, rows, and 
fields to see how everyone fails and recovers from such operations.

How do you optimize the tables?
table backup/restore?
reindex?

Odds are, these two tables will be closer than you think.  But it's the 
maintenance that will kill you in the end.  After all, you're the lackey who is 
going to have to keep it running.