Andy Yoder <ayoder@airfacts.com> wrote:
> I would like the community's input on a topic. The words "too far
> out of the mainstream" are from an e-mail we received from one of
> our clients, describing the concern our client's IT group has
> about our use of PostgreSQL in our shop. The group in question
> supports multiple different databases, including Oracle, MySQL,
> SQLServer, DB2, and even some non-relational databases (think
> Cobol and file-based storage), each type with a variety of
> applications and support needs. We are in the running for getting
> a large contract from them and need to address their question:
> "What makes PostgreSQL no more risky than any other database?"
Hi Andy,
You might be interested in an old post where I compared my
experiences using a commercial database with using PostgreSQL in the
Wisconsin Courts environment:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2011-11/msg00021.php
With only 3000 directly connected users and a few million web hits a
day backed by PostgreSQL, the Wisconsin court system is far from the
largest user, but I figure that if the larger organizations want to
broadcast their usage, that's up to them. I also have talked to
others with much larger databases than we have -- our largest one is
3TB. Again, it's not my place to broadcast details if they don't
choose to do so. But I think "out of the mainstream" is a very odd
description of PostgreSQL. It sounds like the sort of thing which a
representative of a commercial product, afraid of losing big money
to PostgreSQL but unable to come up with any *real* reason not to
use it, might throw out there to try to scare people away from it.
I will join the chorus advising you to ask for more particular
concerns. What is it that they think makes those other database
products no more risky than PostgreSQL?
-Kevin
