Thread

New and investigating

Alain Gougeon <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> — 2003-01-28T20:14:50Z

there

My name is Alain, i have like 14 years behind me working with Oracle, and
nothing else basically.

Recently i came across PostgreSQL and found it to be a very atractive thing,
in concept at least. I would like to know more about it, but not technically
yet, rather on the side of the capabilities it has from a "managerial" point
of view. I was wondering if i could find some pointers here. Thanks
everybody for they contributions.

(i already saw the oficial PostgreSQL "advocacy" page)

The kind of questions that i ask myself are like:

. Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)

. How does it compare to Oracle and the other main players in regards
of solidity, availability, trustability, dificulty of learning, installing,
mantaining?

. How powerful is its internal language (we're quite spoiled here working
with Oracle's PL/SQL which is very good...)

. Is there any article or study done of PostgreSQL from an Oracle
background: ups and downs, surprises, diferences, important
considerations, etc...

. In what cases would it be recomendable and relatively riskless to consider
using PostgreSQL instead of Oracle, and, much more importantly, in which
cases NOT.

. It seems that documentation might be sparse. How confident can one be of
obtaining technical knowledge of PostgreSQL without a very long trial and
fail path? Are there books on it?

. In the few mails that i have been checking, i saw a lot of thing with
which
i am not familiar, but... PostgreSQL is compliant with ANSI SQL, right?

. I've read an interview of Tom Lane where it comes out that PostgreSQL came
out to be faster than the other databases in some test. Anybody got a link
to
that article? tests?

. How efficient is PostgreSQL in terms of memory usage, queueing and all
these elaborated but useful (usually) things that show up inevitably in high
end products (like Oracle). (that could be rephrased as, "how not so basic
is PostgreSQL?"

etc...

I guess you see the picture.

At present all the development i am in charge of relies heavily on Oracle's
PL/SQL, but with the new ages coming up of having several tiers, and the
evergrowing needs for computing resources in front of the shrinking budgets
of struggling economies, this is something i would reconsider. PostgreSQL
places itself like a potential alternative to the oficial great actual
players, but it is really hard to trust anybody's speech right out. The
truth normally lies in many more details, known to the experienced
practicioners. I hope to be able to gather some impresions here

Thanks everybody.

Alain Gougeon
La Paz, Bolivia.

Re: New and investigating

David Nicely <david@zhaps.com> — 2003-01-28T22:56:34Z

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:14:50 -0400
"Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> wrote:

> . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
> 

This post may be of interest...
http://www.faqchest.com/prgm/pgsql-l/pgsql-01/pgsql-0107/pgsql-010728/pgsql01071613_20151.html

Re: New and investigating

Art Fore <afore@sonic.net> — 2003-01-29T01:17:45Z

The one part I find that is true about Oracle:

Its a fantastic piece of software that requires almost no intervention 
on my part. I talked to one of our oracle dba's about it. He actually 
(im not kidding here) did not believe it could be a database if it did 
not require maintenance.

I have been associated with Oracle in two companies. It is so complex 
you have to hire a consultant at $150 an hour to do anything unless you 
have an Oracle guru on staff, and he probably costs almost as much.

Art

David Nicely wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:14:50 -0400
> "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> wrote:
> 
>  
> 
>>. Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
>>papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
>>and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
>>
> 
> 
> This post may be of interest...
> http://www.faqchest.com/prgm/pgsql-l/pgsql-01/pgsql-0107/pgsql-010728/pgsql01071613_20151.html
> 
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org
> 
> .
>

Re: New and investigating

Aarni Ruuhimäki <aarni.ruuhimaki@kymi.com> — 2003-01-29T01:30:16Z

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 10:14 pm, you wrote:
> there
>
> My name is Alain, i have like 14 years behind me working with Oracle, and
> nothing else basically.
>

It's about time ?

> Recently i came across PostgreSQL and found it to be a very atractive
> thing, in concept at least. I would like to know more about it, but not
> technically yet, rather on the side of the capabilities it has from a
> "managerial" point of view. I was wondering if i could find some pointers
> here. Thanks everybody for they contributions.
>
> (i already saw the oficial PostgreSQL "advocacy" page)
>
> The kind of questions that i ask myself are like:
>
> . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
>

It truely is, in my opinion it should be the platform-independent industry 
standard. PostgreSQL www-site is a good starting point for the docs. With 
regard to MySQL, it is fairly easy to learn either one, once you know the 
basics of the other one.

> . How does it compare to Oracle and the other main players in regards
> of solidity, availability, trustability, dificulty of learning, installing,
> mantaining?
>

I'am not familiar with Oracle, by choice I'am afraid, not too keen on these 
'official main proprietary players' like MS-SQL (you mean to say? I have 
enough experience with MS-SQL not to play around with it anymore) etc., but 
as I see it, there are two standards: unix/linux and the rest of the world. 
With two years' experience in the real world, and with dos / win-background, 
I would not even consider setting up a serious db-system on an other platform 
than linux + pgsql or such like. Learning curve may be steep if you do not 
know your way around the basic command-line environment, but it is really 
worth the 'trouble'. Right to the core, it is actually and amazingly simple 
and powerful. Ok, it gets complex with complex scenarios and if you want it 
to ..., but help is readily available, just ask the guys ! One thing you will 
have perhaps to do is to learn some perl, C, php, python or tlc/tk etc. in 
order to make your backend available to your clients. I'd prefer some GUI via 
'www', then you have an interface that is platform-independent, all your 
clients need is a connection and a browser. And how fast can you move your 
entire db-system to another machine ? With a couple of commands and file 
transfers ? Yes.

> . How powerful is its internal language (we're quite spoiled here working
> with Oracle's PL/SQL which is very good...)
>
Hmm, very powerful I'd say, and just by reading this list, you learn a lot.

> . Is there any article or study done of PostgreSQL from an Oracle
> background: ups and downs, surprises, diferences, important
> considerations, etc...
>

Don't know, sorry, but the question has been asked now ?

> . In what cases would it be recomendable and relatively riskless to
> consider using PostgreSQL instead of Oracle, and, much more importantly, in
> which cases NOT.
>

Any and can't think of any. In a broader perspective, if you are willing to 
take the responsibility to design and further develop a system that fits your 
needs now and tomorrow you'll go PG and open source and if it fails everyone 
laughs at your decision and you. You can also spend a small or bigger fortune 
on a commercial system that does not really fit your needs or probably 
over-fits it by far and you do not have much control over, and if that fails, 
it is not your responsibilty, but the big international vendor's and nobody 
dares to laugh ... ( but really is laughing at both ? )

> . It seems that documentation might be sparse. How confident can one be of
> obtaining technical knowledge of PostgreSQL without a very long trial and
> fail path? Are there books on it?
>

On-line docs, mailing lists, etc. for free. And good books, Bruce ? Trial and 
fail is how one really learns. But again, with the help of others further on 
the road you don't have to follow all the wrong paths.

> . In the few mails that i have been checking, i saw a lot of thing with
> which
> i am not familiar, but... PostgreSQL is compliant with ANSI SQL, right?
>

And more.

> . I've read an interview of Tom Lane where it comes out that PostgreSQL
> came out to be faster than the other databases in some test. Anybody got a
> link to
> that article? tests?
>
> . How efficient is PostgreSQL in terms of memory usage, queueing and all
> these elaborated but useful (usually) things that show up inevitably in
> high end products (like Oracle). (that could be rephrased as, "how not so
> basic is PostgreSQL?"
>
> etc...

Tom's territory ? "Hardware is the limit".

>
> I guess you see the picture.
>

Yes, have no fear !

> At present all the development i am in charge of relies heavily on Oracle's
> PL/SQL, but with the new ages coming up of having several tiers, and the
> evergrowing needs for computing resources in front of the shrinking budgets
> of struggling economies, this is something i would reconsider. PostgreSQL
> places itself like a potential alternative to the oficial great actual
> players, but it is really hard to trust anybody's speech right out. The
> truth normally lies in many more details, known to the experienced
> practicioners. I hope to be able to gather some impresions here
>

Shrinking budgets and resources, yes. So why waste money on a huge and clumsy 
system that messes-up things all by itself and eats up all resources just to 
keep itself running ? Repairing calls for out-of-town consultants, who come 
in, do their thing and vanish before you can say do-re-mi in swahili. 
Something like 600 USD per hour ... And initial cost ? Tons of money for a 
pile of installation cds and nothing else. Maybe a manual and contact numbers 
for the consultants.

> Thanks everybody.

This might sound like a bit of propaganda here, but having seen 'the light', I 
am quite enthusiastic about it.

And please see: 

http://www.mslinux.org

A little humour and rumour ...

Best regards,

aarni

>
> Alain Gougeon
> La Paz, Bolivia.
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: 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

Re: New and investigating

Alain Gougeon <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> — 2003-01-29T22:22:25Z

Thanks for the link David, it indeed was interesting. That story speaks very
well of PostgreSQL. That experience relates to volume, would you have
anything else that relates more to an OLTP environment? (to complete the
picture).

Now... (this is for everybody, not David in particular)

A lil' problem i have (generally speaking, in my search for info) is that i
haven't find anything else yet that is more "oficial" or more numerous.
That's only a mail on a mailing list after all, you know.

It evidently is a very interesting case, but if i want to doubt of it, i
would have several good reasons just by what's written there. I can't take
it for sure as something real and definitive. It would be more helpful if
there would be more cases like that, and with some level of "oficiality"
(doubtless stuff).

Other DB vendors usually have a list of clients with cases documented. You
can go fetch information if you need to.

For now i only have one such case here: the one that PostgreSQL itslef
publishes on its advocacy page, of BASF northamerica. But even that one
speaks a lot of projections, and not so much of things that have already
happen...

I am not being paranoic, just cautious and responsible.

I want to believe in PostgreSQL. I am not trying to discredit it. All the
contrary, i want to find apropriate information. The logical reasonment is:
"if PostgreSQL is good, it must prove somewhere. Where are the cases?". So,
where are they?

I really want to know.

Any more pointers, anybody?

Alain Gougeon
La Paz, Bolivia.

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Nicely" <david@zhaps.com>
To: <pgsql-novice@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 6:56 PM
Subject: Re: [NOVICE] New and investigating

> On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:14:50 -0400
> "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> wrote:
>
>
> > . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> > papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> > and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
> >
>
> This post may be of interest...
>
http://www.faqchest.com/prgm/pgsql-l/pgsql-01/pgsql-0107/pgsql-010728/pgsql0
1071613_20151.html
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org

Re: New and investigating

Alain Gougeon <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> — 2003-01-29T22:30:54Z

That's interesting.

I have a bunch of DBAs around me. In each project, some more to deal with
the DBs... I grew used to it and thought that was 'normal'.

And the price is high...

Now, i do work in high budget projects, and this is the kind of places where
nobody wants to put its butt at risk when the system goes live. In theory, a
DB like Oracle gives you that level of confidence. (even though we do run
into troubles more often than we'd want).

Where do i obtain information on PostgreSQL that would allow me to have an
acceptable level of trust in it??? (i mean, for example, for a governmental
project, where you will run critical transactions, for a high number of
users, not to store data, or process files in an environment isolated from
an hungry crowd of users. Something where you really need to serve your
users without downtime or congestion, or whatever...).

Alain Gougeon
La Paz, Bolivia.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Art Fore" <afore@sonic.net>
To: <pgsql-novice@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 9:17 PM
Subject: Re: [NOVICE] New and investigating

> The one part I find that is true about Oracle:
>
> Its a fantastic piece of software that requires almost no intervention
> on my part. I talked to one of our oracle dba's about it. He actually
> (im not kidding here) did not believe it could be a database if it did
> not require maintenance.
>
> I have been associated with Oracle in two companies. It is so complex
> you have to hire a consultant at $150 an hour to do anything unless you
> have an Oracle guru on staff, and he probably costs almost as much.
>
> Art
>
>
>
> David Nicely wrote:
> > On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:14:50 -0400
> > "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>. Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> >>papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> >>and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
> >>
> >
> >
> > This post may be of interest...
> >
http://www.faqchest.com/prgm/pgsql-l/pgsql-01/pgsql-0107/pgsql-010728/pgsql0
1071613_20151.html
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org
> >
> > .
> >
>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives?
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org

Re: New and investigating

Alain Gougeon <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> — 2003-01-29T22:56:08Z

Thanks for your "litle humour and rumour" Aarni.

You evidently are and advocate of the "free" camp, and of course, how else
could it be on this list! ;-)

I apreciate your comments.

About the question on "industry strength", you say that it "truly is" and
should be an industry standard. Hopefuly, and because the truth always
imposes itself (yeah right), it will happen.

Now, how do i go then beyond personal opinions? Like you said yourself, it
"might sound like a bit of propaganda". Nothing bad about it, but one needs
to have hard evidence sometime... Where are the materials, links, companies,
etc... that can back this up?? It is easy for you to say your opinion,
because well... it is yours (!) and you have your own experience about it.
But how about me? I don't have any of these...

Can i possibly start a 'real' project just based on comments? No
Can i invest my rare free time in investigating all this then? No.
(Don't have enough of it. I would probably finish by 2010!)
Do i have peers around it with the experience? Nope.
Can i find enough material to get suficiently confident in PostgreSQL to
just take the risk? Well, not yet...
So, am i just doomed to look at PostgreSQL from far away? (and sigh... :-] )

That can't be so.

I of course understand that PostgreSQL is another kind of effort than Oracle
et al, and doesn't count with its huge salesforce that pushes all kind of
stuff down your throat to show you how good they are, but nevertheless, as
someone who would like to know more (not even yet a 'newcomer'...) i still
expect to find some kind of info that suficiently backs these things. Where
do i find it? (or, how are people suposed to take decisions?)

Or is this illusory? Should i just drop it, and must start with my own tests
to sort this out? That sounds like a lot of work to just begin! Someone
please tell me.

(Tom Lane, how about a shot at this?)

Alain Gougeon
La Paz, Bolivia


----- Original Message -----
From: "Aarni Ruuhimäki" <aarni.ruuhimaki@kymi.com>
To: "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo>
Cc: <pgsql-novice@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: [NOVICE] New and investigating


> On Tuesday 28 January 2003 10:14 pm, you wrote:
> > there
> >
> > My name is Alain, i have like 14 years behind me working with Oracle,
and
> > nothing else basically.
> >
>
> It's about time ?
>
> > Recently i came across PostgreSQL and found it to be a very atractive
> > thing, in concept at least. I would like to know more about it, but not
> > technically yet, rather on the side of the capabilities it has from a
> > "managerial" point of view. I was wondering if i could find some
pointers
> > here. Thanks everybody for they contributions.
> >
> > (i already saw the oficial PostgreSQL "advocacy" page)
> >
> > The kind of questions that i ask myself are like:
> >
> > . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> > papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> > and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
> >
>
> It truely is, in my opinion it should be the platform-independent industry
> standard. PostgreSQL www-site is a good starting point for the docs. With
> regard to MySQL, it is fairly easy to learn either one, once you know the
> basics of the other one.
>
> > . How does it compare to Oracle and the other main players in regards
> > of solidity, availability, trustability, dificulty of learning,
installing,
> > mantaining?
> >
>
> I'am not familiar with Oracle, by choice I'am afraid, not too keen on
these
> 'official main proprietary players' like MS-SQL (you mean to say? I have
> enough experience with MS-SQL not to play around with it anymore) etc.,
but
> as I see it, there are two standards: unix/linux and the rest of the
world.
> With two years' experience in the real world, and with dos /
win-background,
> I would not even consider setting up a serious db-system on an other
platform
> than linux + pgsql or such like. Learning curve may be steep if you do not
> know your way around the basic command-line environment, but it is really
> worth the 'trouble'. Right to the core, it is actually and amazingly
simple
> and powerful. Ok, it gets complex with complex scenarios and if you want
it
> to ..., but help is readily available, just ask the guys ! One thing you
will
> have perhaps to do is to learn some perl, C, php, python or tlc/tk etc. in
> order to make your backend available to your clients. I'd prefer some GUI
via
> 'www', then you have an interface that is platform-independent, all your
> clients need is a connection and a browser. And how fast can you move your
> entire db-system to another machine ? With a couple of commands and file
> transfers ? Yes.
>
> > . How powerful is its internal language (we're quite spoiled here
working
> > with Oracle's PL/SQL which is very good...)
> >
> Hmm, very powerful I'd say, and just by reading this list, you learn a
lot.
>
> > . Is there any article or study done of PostgreSQL from an Oracle
> > background: ups and downs, surprises, diferences, important
> > considerations, etc...
> >
>
> Don't know, sorry, but the question has been asked now ?
>
> > . In what cases would it be recomendable and relatively riskless to
> > consider using PostgreSQL instead of Oracle, and, much more importantly,
in
> > which cases NOT.
> >
>
> Any and can't think of any. In a broader perspective, if you are willing
to
> take the responsibility to design and further develop a system that fits
your
> needs now and tomorrow you'll go PG and open source and if it fails
everyone
> laughs at your decision and you. You can also spend a small or bigger
fortune
> on a commercial system that does not really fit your needs or probably
> over-fits it by far and you do not have much control over, and if that
fails,
> it is not your responsibilty, but the big international vendor's and
nobody
> dares to laugh ... ( but really is laughing at both ? )
>
> > . It seems that documentation might be sparse. How confident can one be
of
> > obtaining technical knowledge of PostgreSQL without a very long trial
and
> > fail path? Are there books on it?
> >
>
> On-line docs, mailing lists, etc. for free. And good books, Bruce ? Trial
and
> fail is how one really learns. But again, with the help of others further
on
> the road you don't have to follow all the wrong paths.
>
> > . In the few mails that i have been checking, i saw a lot of thing with
> > which
> > i am not familiar, but... PostgreSQL is compliant with ANSI SQL, right?
> >
>
> And more.
>
> > . I've read an interview of Tom Lane where it comes out that PostgreSQL
> > came out to be faster than the other databases in some test. Anybody got
a
> > link to
> > that article? tests?
> >
> > . How efficient is PostgreSQL in terms of memory usage, queueing and all
> > these elaborated but useful (usually) things that show up inevitably in
> > high end products (like Oracle). (that could be rephrased as, "how not
so
> > basic is PostgreSQL?"
> >
> > etc...
>
> Tom's territory ? "Hardware is the limit".
>
> >
> > I guess you see the picture.
> >
>
> Yes, have no fear !
>
> > At present all the development i am in charge of relies heavily on
Oracle's
> > PL/SQL, but with the new ages coming up of having several tiers, and the
> > evergrowing needs for computing resources in front of the shrinking
budgets
> > of struggling economies, this is something i would reconsider.
PostgreSQL
> > places itself like a potential alternative to the oficial great actual
> > players, but it is really hard to trust anybody's speech right out. The
> > truth normally lies in many more details, known to the experienced
> > practicioners. I hope to be able to gather some impresions here
> >
>
> Shrinking budgets and resources, yes. So why waste money on a huge and
clumsy
> system that messes-up things all by itself and eats up all resources just
to
> keep itself running ? Repairing calls for out-of-town consultants, who
come
> in, do their thing and vanish before you can say do-re-mi in swahili.
> Something like 600 USD per hour ... And initial cost ? Tons of money for a
> pile of installation cds and nothing else. Maybe a manual and contact
numbers
> for the consultants.
>
> > Thanks everybody.
>
> This might sound like a bit of propaganda here, but having seen 'the
light', I
> am quite enthusiastic about it.
>
> And please see:
>
> http://www.mslinux.org
>
> A little humour and rumour ...
>
> Best regards,
>
> aarni
>
> >
> > Alain Gougeon
> > La Paz, Bolivia.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 3: 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
>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives?
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org

Re: New and investigating

Juliet May <jmay@speark.com> — 2003-01-29T23:25:06Z

Alain,

I have been using Postgresql for about the past year. I have been very happy
with its performance and especially how easy it is to learn. I really don't
have much to contribute as far as performance goes because I haven't had the
opportunity to compare it to other databases. In fact I learned everything I
know about database design and administration while using Postgresql.

Our site is fairly small. My database has about 75 active tables and 5
views. My largest table has about 10,000 records. I only have about 80 users
retrieving and adding data to the database through a web interface I
designed in php. I haven't had any reported problems from any of the users.
During heavy development and testing of applications and queries (usually
with many problems in them) I have experienced the database shutting down
due to shared memory space. It probably would have only happened once if I
had made the recommended changes I found in the help docs but everytime the
problem has occured I have been too busy and figured it was just easier to
restart the server.

For references I have been using the postgresql site (it looks like they
just updated their documentation format) and the book PostgreSql Developer's
Handbook published by Sams. Between the two I have learned to implement
simple queries (selects, updates, deletes), joins, stored procedures,
transactions, database installation, and database maintenance.

If I can be of any help let me know :)

Julie

P.S. For everyone else out there --> If anyone knows of a telecommuting job
where I can use my skills I would really appreciate the info.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo>
> Now, how do i go then beyond personal opinions? Like you said yourself, it
> "might sound like a bit of propaganda". Nothing bad about it, but one
needs
> to have hard evidence sometime... Where are the materials, links,
companies,
> etc... that can back this up??

Re: New and investigating

Derek Clarkson <dhc@bigpond.net.au> — 2003-01-29T23:34:31Z

Hi,
	Just thought I might drop my two cents worth in, so take this as my opinion 
only ;-)

One thing that came across very clearly to me reading 'The cathedral and the 
Bazaar' (read it if you haven't) is the difference in attitude between a 
closed source company such as oracle and the open source hackers who write 
products such as Postgres. Closed source companies tend to spend a lot of 
time and money generated marketting hype, test cases and "big" clients in 
order to make you want to buy their products. This makes sense as they need 
to sell the product to make money. From the buyers point of view it gives 
them that warm fuzzy feeling about spending all that money. I.e. if that 
government or corporation is using this product then it must be good.

Open source people on the other hard tend to spend more time working on the 
product and allow it to speak for them. This means that the sort of 
documentation you might be looking for will either not be there or be a lot 
harder to find. This may sound silly but on the other hand it also makes a 
lot of sense. It allows the developers of the product to devote all of their 
time to making the product good. This is best illustrated by the speed at 
which open source products adds new features and fix bugs. I've yet to see a 
closed source company that can respond as fast.

So is Postgres good ? I think you can only judge this by the quantity and 
strength of the activity around it. Any open source project which does not 
have a good core product will quickly die as people get frustrated and move 
to other products. The fact that Postgres is doing well with a healthy and 
active user base, plus plenty of development going on speaks well for it.

Should you try it ? I don't know. This is a decision that only you can make. I 
would suggest that you do spend some of your time to install it on a test 
machine and 'play' with it for a while to get the feel of the software and 
how it works. It's not going to cost you anything bar some of your time. From 
this you will then be able to decide whether Postgres is for you. 

If theres one thing I've learned over the years it's that to never believe 
what sales people tell me. I don't care how big the software company is or 
how fabulous the product appears. I'll play with before I decide whether to 
buy it. basically because there are always things they never tell you. Little 
"gotcha's!" that aren't in the doco. Of course every product has them, even 
Postgres. but whether a gotcha is a bug, design issue or just because you are 
used to doing things differently, is different for each user. 

Anyway, thats my little speach. Please don't shoot me if you don't like it. 
It's just the way I think of things at the moment. I hope it helps in some 
way.

cio
Derek.


On Thursday 30 January 2003 09:56, you wrote:
> Thanks for your "litle humour and rumour" Aarni.
>
> You evidently are and advocate of the "free" camp, and of course, how else
> could it be on this list! ;-)
>
> I apreciate your comments.
>
> About the question on "industry strength", you say that it "truly is" and
> should be an industry standard. Hopefuly, and because the truth always
> imposes itself (yeah right), it will happen.
>
> Now, how do i go then beyond personal opinions? Like you said yourself, it
> "might sound like a bit of propaganda". Nothing bad about it, but one needs
> to have hard evidence sometime... Where are the materials, links,
> companies, etc... that can back this up?? It is easy for you to say your
> opinion, because well... it is yours (!) and you have your own experience
> about it. But how about me? I don't have any of these...
>
> Can i possibly start a 'real' project just based on comments? No
> Can i invest my rare free time in investigating all this then? No.
> (Don't have enough of it. I would probably finish by 2010!)
> Do i have peers around it with the experience? Nope.
> Can i find enough material to get suficiently confident in PostgreSQL to
> just take the risk? Well, not yet...
> So, am i just doomed to look at PostgreSQL from far away? (and sigh... :-]
> )
>
> That can't be so.
>
> I of course understand that PostgreSQL is another kind of effort than
> Oracle et al, and doesn't count with its huge salesforce that pushes all
> kind of stuff down your throat to show you how good they are, but
> nevertheless, as someone who would like to know more (not even yet a
> 'newcomer'...) i still expect to find some kind of info that suficiently
> backs these things. Where do i find it? (or, how are people suposed to take
> decisions?)
>
> Or is this illusory? Should i just drop it, and must start with my own
> tests to sort this out? That sounds like a lot of work to just begin!
> Someone please tell me.
>
> (Tom Lane, how about a shot at this?)
>
> Alain Gougeon
> La Paz, Bolivia
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Aarni Ruuhimäki" <aarni.ruuhimaki@kymi.com>
> To: "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo>
> Cc: <pgsql-novice@postgresql.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 9:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [NOVICE] New and investigating
>
> > On Tuesday 28 January 2003 10:14 pm, you wrote:
> > > there
> > >
> > > My name is Alain, i have like 14 years behind me working with Oracle,
>
> and
>
> > > nothing else basically.
> >
> > It's about time ?
> >
> > > Recently i came across PostgreSQL and found it to be a very atractive
> > > thing, in concept at least. I would like to know more about it, but not
> > > technically yet, rather on the side of the capabilities it has from a
> > > "managerial" point of view. I was wondering if i could find some
>
> pointers
>
> > > here. Thanks everybody for they contributions.
> > >
> > > (i already saw the oficial PostgreSQL "advocacy" page)
> > >
> > > The kind of questions that i ask myself are like:
> > >
> > > . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> > > papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> > > and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
> >
> > It truely is, in my opinion it should be the platform-independent
> > industry standard. PostgreSQL www-site is a good starting point for the
> > docs. With regard to MySQL, it is fairly easy to learn either one, once
> > you know the basics of the other one.
> >
> > > . How does it compare to Oracle and the other main players in regards
> > > of solidity, availability, trustability, dificulty of learning,
>
> installing,
>
> > > mantaining?
> >
> > I'am not familiar with Oracle, by choice I'am afraid, not too keen on
>
> these
>
> > 'official main proprietary players' like MS-SQL (you mean to say? I have
> > enough experience with MS-SQL not to play around with it anymore) etc.,
>
> but
>
> > as I see it, there are two standards: unix/linux and the rest of the
>
> world.
>
> > With two years' experience in the real world, and with dos /
>
> win-background,
>
> > I would not even consider setting up a serious db-system on an other
>
> platform
>
> > than linux + pgsql or such like. Learning curve may be steep if you do
> > not know your way around the basic command-line environment, but it is
> > really worth the 'trouble'. Right to the core, it is actually and
> > amazingly
>
> simple
>
> > and powerful. Ok, it gets complex with complex scenarios and if you want
>
> it
>
> > to ..., but help is readily available, just ask the guys ! One thing you
>
> will
>
> > have perhaps to do is to learn some perl, C, php, python or tlc/tk etc.
> > in order to make your backend available to your clients. I'd prefer some
> > GUI
>
> via
>
> > 'www', then you have an interface that is platform-independent, all your
> > clients need is a connection and a browser. And how fast can you move
> > your entire db-system to another machine ? With a couple of commands and
> > file transfers ? Yes.
> >
> > > . How powerful is its internal language (we're quite spoiled here
>
> working
>
> > > with Oracle's PL/SQL which is very good...)
> >
> > Hmm, very powerful I'd say, and just by reading this list, you learn a
>
> lot.
>
> > > . Is there any article or study done of PostgreSQL from an Oracle
> > > background: ups and downs, surprises, diferences, important
> > > considerations, etc...
> >
> > Don't know, sorry, but the question has been asked now ?
> >
> > > . In what cases would it be recomendable and relatively riskless to
> > > consider using PostgreSQL instead of Oracle, and, much more
> > > importantly,
>
> in
>
> > > which cases NOT.
> >
> > Any and can't think of any. In a broader perspective, if you are willing
>
> to
>
> > take the responsibility to design and further develop a system that fits
>
> your
>
> > needs now and tomorrow you'll go PG and open source and if it fails
>
> everyone
>
> > laughs at your decision and you. You can also spend a small or bigger
>
> fortune
>
> > on a commercial system that does not really fit your needs or probably
> > over-fits it by far and you do not have much control over, and if that
>
> fails,
>
> > it is not your responsibilty, but the big international vendor's and
>
> nobody
>
> > dares to laugh ... ( but really is laughing at both ? )
> >
> > > . It seems that documentation might be sparse. How confident can one be
>
> of
>
> > > obtaining technical knowledge of PostgreSQL without a very long trial
>
> and
>
> > > fail path? Are there books on it?
> >
> > On-line docs, mailing lists, etc. for free. And good books, Bruce ? Trial
>
> and
>
> > fail is how one really learns. But again, with the help of others further
>
> on
>
> > the road you don't have to follow all the wrong paths.
> >
> > > . In the few mails that i have been checking, i saw a lot of thing with
> > > which
> > > i am not familiar, but... PostgreSQL is compliant with ANSI SQL, right?
> >
> > And more.
> >
> > > . I've read an interview of Tom Lane where it comes out that PostgreSQL
> > > came out to be faster than the other databases in some test. Anybody
> > > got
>
> a
>
> > > link to
> > > that article? tests?
> > >
> > > . How efficient is PostgreSQL in terms of memory usage, queueing and
> > > all these elaborated but useful (usually) things that show up
> > > inevitably in high end products (like Oracle). (that could be rephrased
> > > as, "how not
>
> so
>
> > > basic is PostgreSQL?"
> > >
> > > etc...
> >
> > Tom's territory ? "Hardware is the limit".
> >
> > > I guess you see the picture.
> >
> > Yes, have no fear !
> >
> > > At present all the development i am in charge of relies heavily on
>
> Oracle's
>
> > > PL/SQL, but with the new ages coming up of having several tiers, and
> > > the evergrowing needs for computing resources in front of the shrinking
>
> budgets
>
> > > of struggling economies, this is something i would reconsider.
>
> PostgreSQL
>
> > > places itself like a potential alternative to the oficial great actual
> > > players, but it is really hard to trust anybody's speech right out. The
> > > truth normally lies in many more details, known to the experienced
> > > practicioners. I hope to be able to gather some impresions here
> >
> > Shrinking budgets and resources, yes. So why waste money on a huge and
>
> clumsy
>
> > system that messes-up things all by itself and eats up all resources just
>
> to
>
> > keep itself running ? Repairing calls for out-of-town consultants, who
>
> come
>
> > in, do their thing and vanish before you can say do-re-mi in swahili.
> > Something like 600 USD per hour ... And initial cost ? Tons of money for
> > a pile of installation cds and nothing else. Maybe a manual and contact
>
> numbers
>
> > for the consultants.
> >
> > > Thanks everybody.
> >
> > This might sound like a bit of propaganda here, but having seen 'the
>
> light', I
>
> > am quite enthusiastic about it.
> >
> > And please see:
> >
> > http://www.mslinux.org
> >
> > A little humour and rumour ...
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > aarni
> >
> > > Alain Gougeon
> > > La Paz, Bolivia.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ---------------------------(end of
> > > broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: 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
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives?
> >
> > http://archives.postgresql.org
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

-- 
Derek Clarkson
Web: http://users/bigpond/net/au/drekka

Re: New and investigating

Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> — 2003-01-29T23:38:36Z

Alain,

SourceForge was running on PostgreSQL until the recent switch to DB2 (which 
was part of a deal with IBM, not because of technical considerations).   
That's a huge, high-transaction database for you.  Unfortunately, I can't 
find a single news item related to this.

And, of course, Afilias already runs the .INFO domain on Postgresql ... you 
would have found that on Advocacy.

I have several large corporate clients who use PostgresSQL in production ... 
and, of course, can't talk about any of them.  NDAs, y'know?

-- 
-Josh Berkus
 Aglio Database Solutions
 San Francisco

Re: New and investigating

Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> — 2003-01-29T23:43:31Z

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 22:30, Alain Gougeon wrote:
> Where do i obtain information on PostgreSQL that would allow me to have an
> acceptable level of trust in it??? (i mean, for example, for a governmental
> project, where you will run critical transactions, for a high number of
> users, not to store data, or process files in an environment isolated from
> an hungry crowd of users. Something where you really need to serve your
> users without downtime or congestion, or whatever...).

The .org domain is now being run by a PostgreSQL database; the bid was
won in competition with several Oracle-based solutions.  I haven't got
the URL any more, but I'm sure someone else can supply it.

There are a few case studies posted at
http://advocacy.postgresql.org/casestudies/

I believe, from comments posted in the past, that organisations have
been reluctant to admit to running PostgreSQL.  I can't follow the logic
of that (unless they want to avoid being targeted by Oracle salesmen).

-- 
Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK                             http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839  932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
                 ========================================
     "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."    
                            Proverbs 1:10

Re: New and investigating

ghaverla@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca — 2003-01-29T23:51:16Z

On 29 Jan 2003, Oliver Elphick wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 22:30, Alain Gougeon wrote:

> > Where do i obtain information on PostgreSQL that would allow me to have an
> > acceptable level of trust in it??? (i mean, for example, for a governmental
> > project, where you will run critical transactions, for a high number of
> > users, not to store data, or process files in an environment isolated from
> > an hungry crowd of users. Something where you really need to serve your
> > users without downtime or congestion, or whatever...).
> 
> The .org domain is now being run by a PostgreSQL database; the bid was
> won in competition with several Oracle-based solutions.  I haven't got
> the URL any more, but I'm sure someone else can supply it.

Let Google be your friend.  If you go to news.google.com and
search for postgresql, you get 13 hits.  That's one of them.
(Or, I got 13 hits just now.)

Gord
-- 
Matter Realisations     http://www.materialisations.com/
Gordon Haverland, B.Sc. M.Eng. President
101  9504 182 St. NW    Edmonton, AB, CA  T5T 3A7
780/481-8019            ghaverla @ freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
780/993-1274 (alt.)

Re: New and investigating

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2003-01-29T23:51:53Z

"Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> writes:
> Where do i obtain information on PostgreSQL that would allow me to have an
> acceptable level of trust in it???

I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for.
Companies are not normally in the habit of stepping forward and offering
unsolicited testimonials for stuff that they use (especially not free
software).  It takes a good deal of cajoling to get someone to offer a
reference, and right now there is no one with the
time/interest/resources to do that for Postgres.  Unless possibly
PostgreSQL Inc, and you say you already looked there.

Great Bridge used to be in the business of collecting such references,
and they had a number of good ones, but I think all that information
vanished when they shut down.  Red Hat was doing so as well, but they
are currently maintaining a low profile w.r.t. RHDB, so I don't think
anything is going to be available there either.

You could try SRA, too, but most likely anything they'd have would be
in Japanese ...

The bottom line is that one of the reasons why there's a price
difference between Oracle and Postgres is that Oracle has a marketing
department that goes out and collects the sort of testimonials you're
looking for.  Postgres doesn't.

So, if you aren't going to touch Postgres without an Oracle-like stack
of marketing material, we might as well not waste each other's time:
go buy Oracle.  If you want to consider using Postgres, my
recommendation would be to build up the confidence you want for
yourself.  Start small, with some noncritical projects, and see how
Postgres does with them.  Scale up from there.

			regards, tom lane

Re: New and investigating

Alain Gougeon <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> — 2003-01-30T00:28:00Z

Thanks everybody who answered. All the answers have been very interesting.

I think i get the picture, and will have to give up on getting the material
i was looking for.

Now, for the record, i wasn't expecting to find the same kind of material
that can be found for Oracle et al. But as there is a PostgreSQL Inc, I
thought there would be "something" (further than the advocacy page). I
thought (and still do) that it should be beefed up. There must be so much
more. (That Inc. surely looks for benefits, but i will supose they work more
with consulting than sales ?)

The path you draw, Tom, then efectively seems to be the only way in this
case. I hope i will eventually be able to go that way. Thanks for providing
the "context", it's as always the most useful piece of information.

Thanks again everybody for their answers. I still welcome all opinions,
testimonies, etc.

Alain

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo>
Cc: <pgsql-novice@postgresql.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 7:51 PM
Subject: Re: [NOVICE] New and investigating


> "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> writes:
> > Where do i obtain information on PostgreSQL that would allow me to have
an
> > acceptable level of trust in it???
>
> I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for.
> Companies are not normally in the habit of stepping forward and offering
> unsolicited testimonials for stuff that they use (especially not free
> software).  It takes a good deal of cajoling to get someone to offer a
> reference, and right now there is no one with the
> time/interest/resources to do that for Postgres.  Unless possibly
> PostgreSQL Inc, and you say you already looked there.
>
> Great Bridge used to be in the business of collecting such references,
> and they had a number of good ones, but I think all that information
> vanished when they shut down.  Red Hat was doing so as well, but they
> are currently maintaining a low profile w.r.t. RHDB, so I don't think
> anything is going to be available there either.
>
> You could try SRA, too, but most likely anything they'd have would be
> in Japanese ...
>
> The bottom line is that one of the reasons why there's a price
> difference between Oracle and Postgres is that Oracle has a marketing
> department that goes out and collects the sort of testimonials you're
> looking for.  Postgres doesn't.
>
> So, if you aren't going to touch Postgres without an Oracle-like stack
> of marketing material, we might as well not waste each other's time:
> go buy Oracle.  If you want to consider using Postgres, my
> recommendation would be to build up the confidence you want for
> yourself.  Start small, with some noncritical projects, and see how
> Postgres does with them.  Scale up from there.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives?
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org

Re: New and investigating

Andrew McMillan <andrew@catalyst.net.nz> — 2003-01-30T10:57:18Z

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 09:14, Alain Gougeon wrote:
> 
> . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)

Hi Alain,

I was the lead architect for the .nz shared registry system which uses
PostgreSQL.  Since the organisation behind this service is a public one,
the process of selection had to be quite public and as a result you can
read various documents of our decisions and prototype findings on the
New Zealand Domain Name Commissioner's website:

The prototype findings document covers some details of our experience
with PostgreSQL for this project, and the Technical Architecture
document which preceded it discusses some reasons why we believed
PostgreSQL to be a good choice.

Look at http://www.dnc.org.nz/index.php?clsid=1&catid=39 for some of our
documents.  Note that these are not focussed particularly on our choice
of PostgreSQL - that was only one of the decisions we were making.

I'm also assisting to put some of our experience into a case study for
PostgreSQL at the moment, however.

Regards,
					Andrew.
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew @ Catalyst .Net.NZ Ltd, PO Box 11-053, Manners St,  Wellington
WEB: http://catalyst.net.nz/         PHYS: Level 2, 150-154 Willis St
DDI: +64(4)916-7201     MOB: +64(21)635-694    OFFICE: +64(4)499-2267
           Survey for nothing with http://survey.net.nz/ 
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: New and investigating

Alain Gougeon <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo> — 2003-01-30T13:42:07Z

Wow,  thank you very much Andrew. That's the kind of stuff i was looking
for. I'll go there ASAP.

Please let me know when the case study will be available.

Alain

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew McMillan" <andrew@catalyst.net.nz>
To: "Alain Gougeon" <agougeon@sigma.gov.bo>
Cc: <pgsql-novice@postgresql.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 6:57 AM
Subject: Re: [NOVICE] New and investigating


> On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 09:14, Alain Gougeon wrote:
> >
> > . Is it really industrial strength? Where can i find articles/white
> > papers/etc that document it? (many people in the lists mention MySQL
> > and stuff like that, that's another ballgame alltogether)
>
> Hi Alain,
>
> I was the lead architect for the .nz shared registry system which uses
> PostgreSQL.  Since the organisation behind this service is a public one,
> the process of selection had to be quite public and as a result you can
> read various documents of our decisions and prototype findings on the
> New Zealand Domain Name Commissioner's website:
>
> The prototype findings document covers some details of our experience
> with PostgreSQL for this project, and the Technical Architecture
> document which preceded it discusses some reasons why we believed
> PostgreSQL to be a good choice.
>
> Look at http://www.dnc.org.nz/index.php?clsid=1&catid=39 for some of our
> documents.  Note that these are not focussed particularly on our choice
> of PostgreSQL - that was only one of the decisions we were making.
>
> I'm also assisting to put some of our experience into a case study for
> PostgreSQL at the moment, however.
>
> Regards,
> Andrew.
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andrew @ Catalyst .Net.NZ Ltd, PO Box 11-053, Manners St,  Wellington
> WEB: http://catalyst.net.nz/         PHYS: Level 2, 150-154 Willis St
> DDI: +64(4)916-7201     MOB: +64(21)635-694    OFFICE: +64(4)499-2267
>            Survey for nothing with http://survey.net.nz/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------