Thread: Completely new and discovering PostGresSql

Completely new and discovering PostGresSql

From
Didier Gasser-Morlay
Date:
Hi everyone,

I've been using MS Sql Server for the last 4 years on NT and I am quite
fed-up with it.
So I am now seriously considering a move towards LINUX and I investigate
the serious DB offering and PostgreSql Seems to come as a really strong
candidate.

however I have some question, which I hope you will not mind answering :

A. In SQl server I use a LOT of stored procedures which to me are a good
way to isolate the front end from the 'business logic'. In order to use
those Stored procedures one has to be able to create variables, cursors
(even outside a transaction). What would be the equivalent in
PostGresSql ?

B. I have seen a fair amount of projects listed on the Web site, but it
does not say much so my question is are there any heavy users of PG so
far (by heavy I mean db with 150+ tables, 150 users, 3000 insert/update
transactions a day + three times as much Selects) .... and really
business-critical apps.

C. Any good books on PGS ?

D. MS Sql server 6.5 has some stupid limitations such as 16 tables max
in a join, 16 indexes per table, 6 (I believe) levbel of cascading
trigger. I couldnot see any of those limits in PGS but did I overlooked
anything ?

E. I am confused about the NT version of PGS. Does it exists natively or
does it requires support DLLs and libraries to work.

I realize this is quite a heavy set of questions and I thank you in
advance for the time you'll spend answering

Didier Gasser-Morlay




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Re: [GENERAL] Completely new and discovering PostGresSql

From
"J. Roeleveld"
Date:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been using MS Sql Server for the last 4 years on NT and I am quite
> fed-up with it.
> So I am now seriously considering a move towards LINUX and I investigate
> the serious DB offering and PostgreSql Seems to come as a really strong
> candidate.
>
> however I have some question, which I hope you will not mind answering :
>
> A. In SQl server I use a LOT of stored procedures which to me are a good
> way to isolate the front end from the 'business logic'. In order to use
> those Stored procedures one has to be able to create variables, cursors
> (even outside a transaction). What would be the equivalent in
> PostGresSql ?

I'm currently in the progress of moving a company database from Access to
PostgreSQL, and am taking the same approach. PostgreSQL has the ability to
create functions, using variables, it's even possible to use C-code, and if
I'm not
mistaken Perl, although I have only been using native SQL and PLPGSQL
for my functions.

> B. I have seen a fair amount of projects listed on the Web site, but it
> does not say much so my question is are there any heavy users of PG so
> far (by heavy I mean db with 150+ tables, 150 users, 3000 insert/update
> transactions a day + three times as much Selects) .... and really
> business-critical apps.

For this I'd best point you to a recent discussion on this list, concerning
PostgreSQL and mission-critical-applications, since alot of information
about this
has been discussed in that thread.

> C. Any good books on PGS ?

Yep, sort of anyway. There are several documents available on the ftp-sites,
and
an online HTML-guide. I've taken the liberty to make a print-out of the
various
documents (900+ pages in total) and they have been of great help to me.

There is also a work-in-progress for a book to be published in early 2000,
although I don't know the specifics at this point. Since I will have to
check thru my
archives for that.

> D. MS Sql server 6.5 has some stupid limitations such as 16 tables max
> in a join, 16 indexes per table, 6 (I believe) levbel of cascading
> trigger. I couldnot see any of those limits in PGS but did I overlooked
> anything ?

I'm not familiar with some of the terms you mention, I have read about some
problems with Joins though, but the View-system is a very good alternative
for
me.

> E. I am confused about the NT version of PGS. Does it exists natively or
> does it requires support DLLs and libraries to work.

It is my understanding that it is possible to compile the server on NT,
using
a certain library, although I seriously advise against using NT for
mission-critical
applications. Especially since NT tends to crash when there are alot of
connections.
(example: NT news-server crashed and went down for nearly a week, after just
20
 simultaneous connections)

> I realize this is quite a heavy set of questions and I thank you in
> advance for the time you'll spend answering

I just hope that the time i spent answering will one day be spent answering
my questions :)

> Didier Gasser-Morlay

Joost Roeleveld


Re: [GENERAL] Completely new and discovering PostGresSql

From
Peter Eisentraut
Date:
On Thu, 25 Nov 1999, Didier Gasser-Morlay wrote:

> I've been using MS Sql Server for the last 4 years on NT and I am quite
> fed-up with it.
> So I am now seriously considering a move towards LINUX and I investigate
> the serious DB offering and PostgreSql Seems to come as a really strong
> candidate.

Of course some might tell you that we run equally well on FreeBSD, etc. No
reason to jump straight to Linux because it's the anti-MS savior. Just so
you know.

> A. In SQl server I use a LOT of stored procedures which to me are a good
> way to isolate the front end from the 'business logic'. In order to use
> those Stored procedures one has to be able to create variables, cursors
> (even outside a transaction). What would be the equivalent in
> PostGresSql ?

Btw., it's spelled "PostgreSQL".

Anyway, we have all sorts of functions and procedures as well, but they
don't have the exact same functionality as "stored procedures" in other
DBMS's. I recommend that you look through the archives for stored
procedures, because there are _extended_ discussions taking place every so
often, which might explain the details to you.

> B. I have seen a fair amount of projects listed on the Web site, but it
> does not say much so my question is are there any heavy users of PG so
> far (by heavy I mean db with 150+ tables, 150 users, 3000 insert/update
> transactions a day + three times as much Selects) .... and really
> business-critical apps.

There also was a thread recently whether PostgreSQL is ready for mission
critical stuff. Look through that. The largest database I know of is about
60GB. There a several people having thousands of tables and thousands of
transactions an hour, so you should be safe there.

> C. Any good books on PGS ?

One is currently being written. You can follow the progress on the web
site.

> D. MS Sql server 6.5 has some stupid limitations such as 16 tables max
> in a join, 16 indexes per table, 6 (I believe) levbel of cascading
> trigger. I couldnot see any of those limits in PGS but did I overlooked
> anything ?

I'm not aware of them.

> E. I am confused about the NT version of PGS. Does it exists natively or
> does it requires support DLLs and libraries to work.

Requires Cygnus porting library.

--
Peter Eisentraut                  Sernanders vaeg 10:115
peter_e@gmx.net                   75262 Uppsala
http://yi.org/peter-e/            Sweden


Re: [GENERAL] Completely new and discovering PostGresSql

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
> B. I have seen a fair amount of projects listed on the Web site, but it
> does not say much so my question is are there any heavy users of PG so
> far (by heavy I mean db with 150+ tables, 150 users, 3000 insert/update
> transactions a day + three times as much Selects) .... and really
> business-critical apps.

That is small for us.

--
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Re: [GENERAL] Completely new and discovering PostGresSql

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
> There is also a work-in-progress for a book to be published in early 2000,
> although I don't know the specifics at this point. Since I will have to
> check thru my
> archives for that.

Go to our web site at www.postgresql.org, and look at the FAQ &
Documentation page.  That is were you should start.  The book is there,
and the documentation is there too.


--
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

RE: [GENERAL] Completely new and discovering PostGresSql

From
"Darvin Zuch"
Date:
I'm in the midst of Switching form SQL Server 6.5 to PostgreSQL.  After
looking at the Procedural Languages in PostgreSQL and the apparent steep
learning curve I opted to segment my business logic into Java Object which
are very Web / Webserver freindly.  I'm running with > 2GB of data and
several hundred TSQL stored procedures.
This allows me to easily switch to easily switch to a higher performance DB
engine (like Oracle) in the future with out such a long conversion period or
learning time.  Java Objects can be made into .DLL's for C integration.

You might want to consider the same.

Darvin Zuch
AutoProfile - Canda

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org
[mailto:owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org]On Behalf Of J. Roeleveld
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 1999 3:46 AM
To: Didier Gasser-Morlay; pgsql-list
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Completely new and discovering PostGresSql


> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been using MS Sql Server for the last 4 years on NT and I am quite
> fed-up with it.
> So I am now seriously considering a move towards LINUX and I investigate
> the serious DB offering and PostgreSql Seems to come as a really strong
> candidate.
>
> however I have some question, which I hope you will not mind answering :
>
> A. In SQl server I use a LOT of stored procedures which to me are a good
> way to isolate the front end from the 'business logic'. In order to use
> those Stored procedures one has to be able to create variables, cursors
> (even outside a transaction). What would be the equivalent in
> PostGresSql ?

I'm currently in the progress of moving a company database from Access to
PostgreSQL, and am taking the same approach. PostgreSQL has the ability to
create functions, using variables, it's even possible to use C-code, and if
I'm not
mistaken Perl, although I have only been using native SQL and PLPGSQL
for my functions.

> B. I have seen a fair amount of projects listed on the Web site, but it
> does not say much so my question is are there any heavy users of PG so
> far (by heavy I mean db with 150+ tables, 150 users, 3000 insert/update
> transactions a day + three times as much Selects) .... and really
> business-critical apps.

For this I'd best point you to a recent discussion on this list, concerning
PostgreSQL and mission-critical-applications, since alot of information
about this
has been discussed in that thread.

> C. Any good books on PGS ?

Yep, sort of anyway. There are several documents available on the ftp-sites,
and
an online HTML-guide. I've taken the liberty to make a print-out of the
various
documents (900+ pages in total) and they have been of great help to me.

There is also a work-in-progress for a book to be published in early 2000,
although I don't know the specifics at this point. Since I will have to
check thru my
archives for that.

> D. MS Sql server 6.5 has some stupid limitations such as 16 tables max
> in a join, 16 indexes per table, 6 (I believe) levbel of cascading
> trigger. I couldnot see any of those limits in PGS but did I overlooked
> anything ?

I'm not familiar with some of the terms you mention, I have read about some
problems with Joins though, but the View-system is a very good alternative
for
me.

> E. I am confused about the NT version of PGS. Does it exists natively or
> does it requires support DLLs and libraries to work.

It is my understanding that it is possible to compile the server on NT,
using
a certain library, although I seriously advise against using NT for
mission-critical
applications. Especially since NT tends to crash when there are alot of
connections.
(example: NT news-server crashed and went down for nearly a week, after just
20
 simultaneous connections)

> I realize this is quite a heavy set of questions and I thank you in
> advance for the time you'll spend answering

I just hope that the time i spent answering will one day be spent answering
my questions :)

> Didier Gasser-Morlay

Joost Roeleveld


************