Thread: Postgres VS Oracle

On 6/18/07, David Tokmatchi <david.tokmatchi@gmail.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@enterprisedb.com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830            | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

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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.tokmatchi@gmail.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@kostyrka.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@enterprisedb.com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830            | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas@kostyrka.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


>
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>
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>


--

       === 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@commandprompt.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@enterprisedb.com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830            | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

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Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas@kostyrka.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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Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.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/

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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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On 6/18/07, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.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@enterprisedb.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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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@crankycanuck.ca
Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
        --Jane Jacobs

On 6/18/07, Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.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@enterprisedb.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@crankycanuck.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@crankycanuck.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.tokmat...@gmail.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/

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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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@kostyrka.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@kostyrka.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)---------------------------
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> your
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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@kostyrka.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
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> > TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> >       subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that
> > your
> >       message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>
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Andrew Kelly wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 13:02 -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas@kostyrka.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@kostyrka.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
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>
>
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> your
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>

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

walterc@indiana.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@matrix.gatewaynet.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/>

> 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

Andrew Kelly wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 13:02 -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas@kostyrka.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

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

Andrew Kelly wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 13:02 -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>
>> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas@kostyrka.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.