Results of EnterpriseDB Open Source Database Survey

EnterpriseDB announced the results of the survey they did a few months ago at OSCON. Now, take the results with a grain of salt as it was done by EnterpriseDB. EnterpriseDB is based on Postgres so there is a vested interest in making Postgres sound good. Results can be skewed depending on how the survey is worded, what options are available as answers and who the respondents are.

The results summary is available for free.

Some key facts:

500 respondents. The download page says "500 corporate IT leaders". Or maybe, 500 open source developers. ;-)

Only 9% of respondents indicated that they preferred commercial solutions over open source solutions. I would guess that a majority of those responding were open source database people anyway. This is also one place where I think the wording of survey questions makes a difference. I'd like to see the survey again and compare the results to the survey itself.

The survey shows that respondents are using open source to migrate away from Oracle and SQL Server. It says that less than 1% is using open source to migrate away from DB2. Since DB2 is a major investor in EnterpriseDB, that doesn't surprise me. Again, the target users of the survey make a difference as well as the questions themselves.

Of course, Postgres was chosen more than any other open source database for transactional applications and high reliability. Again, not surprising based on who wrote the survey and what they sell.

Before I put very much value on this survey, I would want to see more than just a hand-crafted summary of the results. A spreadsheet of all the questions and the answers chosen would be, at least somewhat, valuable. Without that though, it's just marketing. I can't find anything on the site indicating the full results will be made available.

Technorati : database, enterprisedb, mysql, open source, oscon, postgres, survey

Postgres East 2008 Conference

I'm in Baltimore this weekend at the Postgres East 2008 conference. I'm giving a presentation tomorrow on SQL/XML for developers. Below is the presentation and below that is the code used in the presentation. Code to follow along: If you aren't using javascript, you can get download the presentation or the script from scribd. Or, to make it easy, just grab this code:

Slide 25

CREATE TABLE EMP
(
  LAST_NAME text,
  EMP_ID integer NOT NULL,
  FIRST_NAME text,
  DEPT_ID integer,
  SALARY integer,
  CONSTRAINT EMP_pkey PRIMARY KEY (EMP_ID)
)
WITH (OIDS=FALSE);
ALTER TABLE EMP OWNER TO xmluser;


Slide 26

INSERT INTO 
    EMP(
       LAST_NAME, EMP_ID, FIRST_NAME, DEPT_ID, SALARY)
    VALUES
      ('Blow', 1, 'Joe', 1, 10000),
      ('Head', 2, 'Helmut', 1, 12000),
      ('Jack', 3, 'Noe', 1, 12000),
      ('Hard', 4, 'Blow', 2, 20000),
      ('First', 5, 'Hugo', 2, 21000),
      ('Spaem',6, 'Kingoof', 2, 20000),
      ('Ventura', 7, 'Ace', 3, 35000),
      ('Nickleby', 8, 'Nick', 3, 400000),
      ('Budd', 9, 'Billy', 4, 99000),
      ('Cleaver', 10, 'Wally', 4, 100000) ;


Slide 29

SELECT xmlelement(name main, last_name) from emp;

Slide 30

SELECT xmlelement(name main, last_name),
       xmlelement(name main, first_name)
FROM emp;


Slide 31

SELECT XMLForest(last_name, first_name)
FROM emp;

Slide 32

SELECT xmlelement(name main, 
       xmlforest(last_name, first_name) )
FROM emp;

Slide 33

SELECT XMLAgg(
  XMLForest(last_name, first_name) )
FROM emp;


Slide 34

SELECT XMLElement(name main, 
       XMLAgg(XMLForest(last_name, first_name) ))
FROM emp;


Slide 35

SELECT XMLElement(name main, XMLAttributes(nextval('t_seq') AS rownum) )
FROM emp;


Slide 36

CREATE TEMP SEQUENCE t_seq;

SELECT xmlelement(name main, xmlattributes(nextval('t_seq') AS rownum),
       xmlforest(last_name, first_name) )
FROM emp;

DROP SEQUENCE t_seq;

Slide 38

SELECT xmlelement(name main, 
       xmlforest(last_name || first_name AS fullname, salary) )
FROM emp;


Slide 39

SELECT xmlelement(name main,
       xmlelement(name fullname, xmlattributes(dept_id), last_name || first_name ),
       xmlforest(salary) )
FROM emp;



Slide 40

SELECT xmlelement(name main, xmlcomment('Each Name Goes Here'),
       xmlforest(last_name, first_name))
FROM emp;


Slide 41

SELECT xmlelement(name lastname, last_name),
       xmlelement(name firstname, first_name)
FROM emp;

Slide 42

SELECT xmlconcat(
             xmlelement(name lastname, last_name),
             xmlelement(name firstname, first_name) )
FROM emp;

Slide 43

SELECT xmlelement(name main, xmlconcat(
             xmlelement(name lastname, last_name),
             xmlelement(name firstname, first_name) ) )
FROM emp;

Slide 44

CREATE TABLE xmltab (col1 XML);

INSERT INTO xmltab ( 
  SELECT xmlelement(name main, xmlconcat(
             xmlelement(name lastname, last_name),
             xmlelement(name firstname, first_name) ) )
FROM emp);

Slide 45

SELECT * FROM xmltab;

Slide 47

SELECT xpath('/main/firstname/text()', col1) FROM xmltab;

Slide 48

SELECT textcol[1] FROM (
  SELECT xpath('/main/firstname/text()', col1) AS textcol
    FROM xmltab ) AS xmlsource;

Slide 49

select query_to_xml('select * from emp', TRUE, TRUE, 'scott');

Slide 50

select table_to_xml('emp', TRUE, TRUE, 'scott');

postgresql conference sql/xml presentation

Live From JBoss World Orlando!

I'm just back from a brisk walk around the Marriott World Center Resort in Orlando, FL.

What an amazing place! It is incredibly huge. I asked "How big?" when I was checking in and it has 2004 rooms, 265,000 square feet of meeting space, multiple pools (including some with waterfalls), at least one hot tub and a golf course. Oh yeah, and an alarm clock that doesn't work. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm here manning the EnterpriseDB booth with Derek Rodner and, my boss, Jim Mlodgenski. Jim is giving a presentation on Friday. We're giving away copies of my book. I'm doing the signing thing. It's amazingly fun.

I have gotten to talk to so many smart people. JBoss World is not one of the largest conferences but it is a very open source friendly group. I have been amazed at how many people tell me they are already running Postgres and many have been for years. These are production systems too, not just tryouts.

A big draw (besides a free book) has been EnterpriseDB's Oracle compatibility features. Many of these companies are using Oracle and wouldn't mind saving money as long as they don't have to rewrite their apps.

Orlando is just about 65 miles or so from my house so I just drove over. Jim and Derek flew down. We'll all be leaving tomorrow.

postgresql jboss