Yesterday I posted about the results of the EnterpriseDB open source survey. In that post, I said:
I'd like to see the survey again and compare the results to the survey itself.
I discovered that, as of right now, the survey is still online.
Still no information as to when, or if, the entire survey results will be released. That's what I am most interested in.
LewisC
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.
Well, I am no longer working for EnterpriseDB. It was fun while it lasted but it's over so I am moving on. I found a new job, locally. It's pure Oracle and I will get to use Real Application Clusters in a production environment. That's something I haven't done in the past so I am looking forward to it. It's also a java, .net and Oracle Forms shop and they are doing some interesting things with telecommunications and SMS.
From now on, I will only need to travel for conferences. No more trips to New Jersey. That's kind of a drag as I was almost at elite status on Continental. I have two more conferences this year and it just might be enough. I may even take a trip on my own just to get the miles. One of the trips is from Tampa to San Francisco, and back, so that will get me very close. The other is to Virginia and back.
I am a database geek and I will be keeping an eye on EDB just as I did in the past. I will probably post here at the EDB blog about as frequently as I have been (not often). Or, I may let this one die and just do any EDB posting on my postgres blog. That actually makes the most sense. I think I will cross post this one there and make this my last dedicated posting on this blog.
I also plan to keep up with Postgres, for personal knowledge, just as I do MySQL. I actually want to install GridSQL and see how it performs for a variety of different applications.
On the upside, I can now call EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus Advanced Server, PP AS, without marketing having fit. ;-) Heck, if I think of it as Advanced Server Software, I can call it the PP ASS. heh But I would never do that.
So, I can guess I can close out this blog now. Later.
LewisC
LewisC's An Expert's Guide To Oracle Technology
The datastore in Postgres (which is what Advanced Server is based on) is quite a bit different than the way Oracle stores data. Gone are the usual logical storage components. Data blocks, extents and segments just don't exist in a Postgres database. Actually, segments do exist when a table gets bigger than 1GB but that's a story for a different entry.
Postgres stores data as files and directories. Tablespaces are directories and tables (and indexes) are files inside that directory. Postgres ships with two tablespaces installed by default: pg_default and pg_global. The tablespaces cannot be changed or dropped. pg_global contains objects that are visible across databases (i.e. clusterwide). If you don't have any other tablespaces defined, pg_default is where everything else goes.
If you look at a default installation (I'll be using Windows here but *nix is pretty much the same), Postgres creates a HOME pretty much like Oracle does.
In this directory structure, the "data" directory is the home for data. You don't have to put your data here. During install you can choose a completely different directory and you can create tablespaces to even further separate your data.
The data directory is composed of several other directories:
The base directory is the pg_default tablespace and the global directory is the pg_global tablespace. If we select the base directory, we see that there are more sub-directories beneath that one:
We're getting close to the data now. ;-)
Directories on your system may be named differently than on mine. The directory "1" contains, at least part of, the postgres data dictionary. Directory "11510" also contains part of the data dictionary. There are several system catalogs (which are defined as namespaces) in Postgres and these two directories contain data from those. You can edit the files in the directory with notepad. They are binary files but you can see some of the information. DON'T SAVE THEM!
The pgsql_tmp directory is a working directory for the database. It's usually empty unless a query is running.
If we look at one of these directories, we see that the files are named like the directories that contain them:
All objects in Postgres have a unique object ID. The directory name or file name MAY be the same as the object's ID. That's not always the case though. I haven't quite figured out what conditions make this true but it frequently is the case.
I can run a query, using some of the IDs above, to see what they might be tied to:
And finally, if I create a new tablespace, I can put it where I want it. If I run this command:
create tablespace sample_tblspce location 'c:/temp/extradata';
I will create a new tablespace in my C:\TEMP directory in a subdirectory called extradata. I can then create a table using that tablespace.
create table abc1 (data date) tablespace sample_tblspce;
Now, I'll do a dir command in DOS:
So, when I created the tablespace, I associated a logical name in Postgres with a physical directory in the file system. Postgres did not create the extradata directory but it did create the underlying "12695" directory which is where it actually stores data.
When I created a table in the tablespace, Postgres created a file, 16833. I can re-run my query against pg_class and see the table in the data dictionary:
Well, this has gotten quite a bit longer than I intended. I just wanted to explain that tables in Postgres are stored as files. Same for Indexes. Tablespaces are directories. There are some issues associated with this as well as some benefits. I'll write about those in the future.
LewisC
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.
EnterpriseDB Corp announced yesterday that they will be joining Amazon in the cloud. So what the heck does that mean?
Amazon's cloud computing is also called the Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute or Amazon EC2. EC2, when tied with Amazon's cloud storage (Amazon S3), gives you cheap and easy scalability for your applications. Your computing power moves from your own data center and hardware to the "cloud". You control the servers but they are virtual servers running somewhere else. You control access, you control what applications are running and who can use them. If you only need a trickle, you pay for a trickle. When you need to scale to huge proportions, you pay for what you need.
Amazon recently announced Amazon SimpleDB which utilizes Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3. With SimpleDB, you can store and query data (i.e. build data web services). I really wasn't all that impressed with SimpleDB when I first read about it as it is a very simple database. It's named well. ;-)
SimpleDB gives you named value sets of data. It is the most basic of data structures. You can assign anything to the "database" by giving it a name and a value. A name can have multiple values. And so on.
EnterpriseDB's announcement, EnterpriseDB to Deliver OLTP Database Using Amazon Cloud, means that instead of the very basic SimpleDB, you will now be able to get a robust, Enterprise-class database in the cloud.
The beta testing for EnterpriseDB Advanced Server Cloud Edition starts in March, 2008. Cool.
You can run EnterpriseDB on a tiny server to build and test your apps and then, in minutes, scale up to huge proportions when you go live. No worries about data centers or buying hardware.
No mention if the vanilla EnterpriseDB PostgreSQL package would be offered. I would think not as EnterpriseDB Advanced Server is more geared towards this kind of solution.
I'm not sure what kind of SLAs Amazon offers. It will be interesting to see what kind of guarantees can be offered on a service like this. OLTP processing requires very reliable computing, much more so than OLAP and reporting.
We live in interesting times.
LewisC
Hi all. I'm going to be using Postgres and EnterpriseDB a lot more in the near future. I was wondering if there is a Tampa area, or central Florida, Postgres user group or if there might be interest in starting one. If not, maybe a general database user group. I know the local Oracle user group is very popular (and it's a group I attend and enjoy) and I was hoping to have the same kind of thing for Postgres and EnterpriseDB. I think a general database user group might be a good idea too. It could cover all of the databases and give people who don't normally work with a particular database some exposure to it. For example, I have never worked with SQL Server but wouldn't mind an occasional presentation on SQL Server topics. Any interest in something like this? I don't know how many people in Central Florida read my blog and would be interested in meeting and discussing various databases. Let me know if you are already aware of something like this or would be interested in attending if something was available. Thanks, LewisC
postgresql enterprisedbI've been thinking long and hard about how I want to give away a few copies of my book. I will be at the SOUG meeting Thursday, Jan 24th here in Tampa. If you're in the area, stop by. I'm going to have a drawing for a couple of copies that night. That doesn't really help those people who aren't near by. So, I am going to ask 3 questions and the first two people to answer all three correctly will get a copy. They won't be hard to answer but the answers might require a little work. I will ask the questions and explain how you will need to respond. To get the questions, you need to follow me on twitter. You can find my twitter account in various places on the net, including in my blog at ITToolbox.com.. You will need to be watching at 9am Eastern time, Jan 12, 2008. Follow and be watching for my questions. I will ask the questions and then explain what to do next. This contest is open to anyone. If you are outside the US and you win, we can discuss the best way to get you your book. I hope this is a fun process. That's what I'm shooting for anyway. Let me know what you think. LewisC
postgresql enterprisedbWell, it's taken over a year but it has finally arrived. I started writing the book back in Aug 2006. I finished in late Jan 2007 and the technical editor finished his work in March. Now, In Jan 2008, EnterpriseDB: The Definitive Reference is available. I'm glad I didn't wait for the movie. ;-)
It's kind of ironic. Just this morning, I posted that I am working on my second book. My wife called me at work and told me two boxes of books had arrived. 2008 is turning out to be a good year. I'll have some additional news in the near future.
Anyway, the book looks good. I've already found a few typos and grammar errors just skimming around. I like the font and the pages look really crisp. All in all, I have to say I am very happy that the book is out.
Check out some photos:
I think I want to give a couple away. Maybe some kind of contest for the blog readers. Any ideas of something fair? I am willing to pay shipping for a couple but that would only be here in the US. Overseas shipping gets expensive.
LewisC
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. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me as they are not releasing SPL (their version of PL/SQL) to be included. I guess it's being included because it also supports PL/pgSQL (the postgres procedural language). Bitmap indexes are not making it into this release. That would have been nice for larger installations like data warehouses. Not mentioned in the article but will be there is SQL/X support. I am a huge user of XML and SQL/X makes life so much easier when generating XML. I wonder when XQuery will be supported?
postgresql release 8.3 xmlI 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:
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. The site also hosts community-based forums, enabling EnterpriseDB Postgres users to interact with peers and leverage the collective experience of the EnterpriseDB Postgres community.The forums are still fairly new so there isn't a lot of traffic yet, but that will come with time. There is a forum for news, postgres beginners, postgres on windows, postgres on linux and postgres on mac. Check it out. LewisC
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