Thread: Improvements to PostgreSQL

Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
I am forwarding this to hackers on behalf of some people who want to
improve PostgreSQL in India.

I suggest you read the developers FAQ on the developers page:
http://developers.postgresql.org

then subscribe to hackers to discuss feature additions.  Thanks.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suresh Tri wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> We are a bunch(about 10)of enthusiastic software
> engineers from Bangalore who strongly believe in
> opensource. 
> We are currently looking at the prospect of improving
> the  PostgreSQL to the enterprise level. At first we
> would like to take PostgreSQL atleast to the level of
> Oracle 7i or 8i. We already have the difflist of
> features differences between Oracle 8i and the current
> PostgreSQL(7.4). But we are finding it hard to
> prioritize the features.
> What do you think are the important features that are
> present in Oracle 8i but absent in the current
> PostgreSQL ehich the enterprises look at. It would be
> of the great help if you can tell us about these
> featues and also the way in which we can contribute to
> the PostgreSQL development.

--  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610)
359-1001+  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square,
Pennsylvania19073
 


Re: Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Gavin Sherry
Date:
On Sun, 25 Jul 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> I am forwarding this to hackers on behalf of some people who want to
> improve PostgreSQL in India.
>
> I suggest you read the developers FAQ on the developers page:
>
>     http://developers.postgresql.org
>
> then subscribe to hackers to discuss feature additions.  Thanks.

As Bruce suggests, subscribe and consider posting the list of feature
differences so that others can see what the diffences are.

Thanks,

Gavin


Re: Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Christopher Kings-Lynne
Date:
I reckon they could have a crack at implementing SQL2003 recursive 
queries (eg. WITH syntax).

Or, SQL2003 ROLLUP and CUBE queries.

But that's just what I want :)

Chris

Bruce Momjian wrote:

> I am forwarding this to hackers on behalf of some people who want to
> improve PostgreSQL in India.
> 
> I suggest you read the developers FAQ on the developers page:
> 
>     http://developers.postgresql.org
> 
> then subscribe to hackers to discuss feature additions.  Thanks.
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Suresh Tri wrote:
> 
>>Hi all,
>>
>>We are a bunch(about 10)of enthusiastic software
>>engineers from Bangalore who strongly believe in
>>opensource. 
>>We are currently looking at the prospect of improving
>>the  PostgreSQL to the enterprise level. At first we
>>would like to take PostgreSQL atleast to the level of
>>Oracle 7i or 8i. We already have the difflist of
>>features differences between Oracle 8i and the current
>>PostgreSQL(7.4). But we are finding it hard to
>>prioritize the features.
>>What do you think are the important features that are
>>present in Oracle 8i but absent in the current
>>PostgreSQL ehich the enterprises look at. It would be
>>of the great help if you can tell us about these
>>featues and also the way in which we can contribute to
>>the PostgreSQL development.
> 
> 


Re: Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Suresh Tri
Date:
Hi,

I am already a member of hackers group and I get all
the messages posted to the group. In fact I get 2
copies of each!! I think I subscribed twice. But I am
unable to send messages to the group.

Here are the feature list which we are planning to
implement. This list is obtained by comparing the
features of Oracle 8i and Postgresql 7.4 . We know
that a lot more work has to be done in finding the
exact features and the way to implement them. Anyway
this is our initial list :

Our basic idea is to divide the task of migrating from
Oracle to postgresql in 3 parts
1. Automation of migration from Oracle to postgresql
:- there is already the tool ora2pg - but we came to
know that a lot of things have to be improved to
totally automate it.

2. Core functionality add-ons to postgresql :-
-Table joins
-Java stored procedures
-Backup and recovery (incremental backup/restore)
-Query optimization * Indexing techniques * Star query optimization
- Data Types * BLBL * Images * Long
Some of the above features are already present, but
may not be complete(as compared to Oracle).

3. Application compatibility
-Oracle Compatible JDBC driver
-PL/SQL Compatibility * Named parameter * Parameterized Cursors * Output Paramters
-Query compatibility * Oracle DML/DDL Compatibility * Behavioral differences like null handling * Nested Queries *
ManualOptimization Hints
 

I know that this list is not totally explainative, but
we will provide you further details as we investigate
deeper in this regard.

All your sugestions are welcome. Please help us to
implement these features.
Our aim is to make postgresql enterprise level.

Thanks,
Suresh


--- Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> wrote: > I
am forwarding this to hackers on behalf of some
> people who want to
> improve PostgreSQL in India.
> 
> I suggest you read the developers FAQ on the
> developers page:
> 
>     http://developers.postgresql.org
> 
> then subscribe to hackers to discuss feature
> additions.  Thanks.
> 
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Suresh Tri wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > We are a bunch(about 10)of enthusiastic software
> > engineers from Bangalore who strongly believe in
> > opensource. 
> > We are currently looking at the prospect of
> improving
> > the  PostgreSQL to the enterprise level. At first
> we
> > would like to take PostgreSQL atleast to the level
> of
> > Oracle 7i or 8i. We already have the difflist of
> > features differences between Oracle 8i and the
> current
> > PostgreSQL(7.4). But we are finding it hard to
> > prioritize the features.
> > What do you think are the important features that
> are
> > present in Oracle 8i but absent in the current
> > PostgreSQL ehich the enterprises look at. It would
> be
> > of the great help if you can tell us about these
> > featues and also the way in which we can
> contribute to
> > the PostgreSQL development.
> 
> -- 
>   Bruce Momjian                        | 
> http://candle.pha.pa.us
>   pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610)
> 359-1001
>   +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts
> Road
>   +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown
> Square, Pennsylvania 19073
> 
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the
> unregister command
>     (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to
> majordomo@postgresql.org)
>  

    
___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!
http://www.allnewmessenger.com
 


Re: Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Peter Eisentraut
Date:
Suresh Tri wrote:
> 2. Core functionality add-ons to postgresql :-
> -Table joins

Already done.

> -Java stored procedures

Already done.

> -Backup and recovery (incremental backup/restore)

Will appear in next release.

> -Query optimization
>   * Indexing techniques
>   * Star query optimization

Good luck with that. :-)

> - Data Types
>   * BLBL
>   * Images
>   * Long

These are probably redundant with bytea.

> 3. Application compatibility
> -Oracle Compatible JDBC driver

JDBC drivers should be compatible with the JDBC standard, not with some 
vendor.

> -Query compatibility
>   * Oracle DML/DDL Compatibility

Like what?

>   * Behavioral differences like null handling

Not gonna happen.

>   * Nested Queries

Do you mean recursive queries?

>   * Manual Optimization Hints

These are probably not going to be compatible with Oracle anyway.

> All your sugestions are welcome. Please help us to
> implement these features.
> Our aim is to make postgresql enterprise level.

PostgreSQL is already enterprise-level.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/



Re: Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Justin Clift
Date:
Suresh Tri wrote:
<snip>> All your sugestions are welcome. Please help us to> implement these features.> Our aim is to make postgresql
enterpriselevel.
 

Hi Suresh,
From reading your post, I feel your team is approaching the goal of 
making PostgreSQL "Enterprise Level" in a non-optimal way.

With the "soon to be released" version 7.5 of PostgreSQL, the core 
database engine itself is already very good.  This is not the area 
needing to be worked upon for the next level of Enterprise Functionality.

Your team will likely have a lot more effect if they concentrate on what 
Enterprises really need that PostgreSQL is missing:
 + An SNMP agent to report on PostgreSQL's status and allows remote 
control of the PostgreSQL daemon.  From an Oracle perspective, this 
would be the equivalent of "Oracle Intelligent Agents", part of the core 
features of the Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM).
 + Tools to allow control of PostgreSQL databases from one central 
place.  Again, the same as OEM.
   + Starting and stopping the database   + Managing Users   + Backup and Recovery   + Alerts and submitting jobs   +
etc
   Oracle does this by having a centralised information repository that 
a management GUI connects too, and having Oracle Intelligent Agents 
running on each server the database software is on.  These Oracle 
Intelligent Agents keep the centralised repository aware of the status 
of the Oracle server software, perform actions on the Oracle servers as 
directed by the centralised repository (jobs running on there, 
instructions by the GUI, etc), and more.
   There's more to what the OEM GUI does, but that's a good start.
   + Something else that would be useful is a GUI tool to automatically 
setup PostgreSQL replication.  The PostgreSQL "Slony-I" project would be 
the first one to look at, and probably equivalent to something like 
Oracle's Data Guard.  They use the different approach, but the end 
result is having a master and standby databases.

Hope this is helpful.

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift
> Thanks,> Suresh
<snip>




Re: Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Suresh Tri
Date:
Thanks Peter for your reply,

we will investigate further into your comments. We
understand that postgresql is already
enterprise-level. But as our observation many of the
propriety databse users in the enterprise level are
reluctant to switch to postgresql. We wanted to to
bridge the gap. 

Thanks once again,
Suresh


--- Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote: > Suresh
Tri wrote:
> > 2. Core functionality add-ons to postgresql :-
> > -Table joins
> 
> Already done.
> 
> > -Java stored procedures
> 
> Already done.
> 
> > -Backup and recovery (incremental backup/restore)
> 
> Will appear in next release.
> 
> > -Query optimization
> >   * Indexing techniques
> >   * Star query optimization
> 
> Good luck with that. :-)
> 
> > - Data Types
> >   * BLBL
> >   * Images
> >   * Long
> 
> These are probably redundant with bytea.
> 
> > 3. Application compatibility
> > -Oracle Compatible JDBC driver
> 
> JDBC drivers should be compatible with the JDBC
> standard, not with some 
> vendor.
> 
> > -Query compatibility
> >   * Oracle DML/DDL Compatibility
> 
> Like what?
> 
> >   * Behavioral differences like null handling
> 
> Not gonna happen.
> 
> >   * Nested Queries
> 
> Do you mean recursive queries?
> 
> >   * Manual Optimization Hints
> 
> These are probably not going to be compatible with
> Oracle anyway.
> 
> > All your sugestions are welcome. Please help us to
> > implement these features.
> > Our aim is to make postgresql enterprise level.
> 
> PostgreSQL is already enterprise-level.
> 
> -- 
> Peter Eisentraut
> http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
> 
> 
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the
> unregister command
>     (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to
> majordomo@postgresql.org)
>  

    
___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!
http://www.allnewmessenger.com
 


Re: Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Patrick Welche
Date:
On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 06:13:30PM +1000, Justin Clift wrote:
>  + An SNMP agent to report on PostgreSQL's status and allows remote 
> control of the PostgreSQL daemon.  From an Oracle perspective, this 
> would be the equivalent of "Oracle Intelligent Agents", part of the core 
> features of the Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM).

Is there more to "remote control" than setting GUC variables? Tell me more!

Cheers,

Patrick


Re: Improvements to PostgreSQL

From
Justin Clift
Date:
Patrick Welche wrote:
<snip>
> Is there more to "remote control" than setting GUC variables? Tell me more!

Sure:
 + starting/restarting/stopping the database server software + the normal DBA type work - creating/altering/dropping
databases,
 
users, functions, languages, permissions (etc) + Remote backup and recovery + Submitting jobs to run remotely on the
server. i.e. reindexing or 
 
vacuuming scripts
 Remote Monitoring: + Alerts for specified events.  i.e. The database server is getting 
near to capacity in it's filesystem(s), or there have been too many 
invalid PG authorisation attempts, or there are connections getting 
rejected because the max_connections parameter isn't high enough
 Groups + Defining arbitrary groups of servers for the above to speed things 
up when working with many servers
 Roles + Having multiple administrators with different permissions (role 
based is generally good), all communicating through the centralised info 
repository so things don't get out of sync
 (possibly) + loading additional PG packages.  i.e. rolling out "oid2name" or 
"pgbench" (or other PG utils) to servers.  Could be viewed as something 
that should be done with the OS packaging mechanism(s) instead.

Any of the PG GUI's (I generally use pgAdmin) could likely be extended 
to do all of this in a nice, user friendly way.

As an aside, SNMP is important in enterprise settings as it allows PG to 
be plugged into the monitoring capabilities of enterprise management 
frameworks.  i.e. Concord's eHealth, and probably Tivoli, OpenView, etc

Hope that's useful.

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

> Cheers,
> 
> Patrick