VLDB Features

I'm starting work on next projects for 8.4.

Many applications have the need to store very large data volumes for
both archival and analysis. The analytic databases are commonly known as
Data Warehouses, though there isn't a common term for large archival
data stores. The use cases for those can often be blurred and many
people see those as only one use case. My initial interest is in the
large archival data stores.

One of the main issues to be faced is simply data maintenance and
management. Loading, deleting, vacuuming data all takes time. Those
issues relate mainly to the size of the data store rather than any
particular workload, so I'm calling that set of required features "Very
Large Database" (or VLDB) features.

VLDB Features I'm expecting to work on are
- Read Only Tables/WORM tables
- Advanced Partitioning
- Compression
plus related performance features

Details of those will be covered in separate mails over next few weeks
and months. So just to let everybody know that's where I'm headed, so
you see the big picture with me.

I'll be working on other projects as well, many of which I've listed
here: http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Simon_Riggs%
27_Development_Projects  I expect the list is too long to complete for
8.4, but I'm allowing for various issues arising during development.

So specific discussion on other mails as they arrive, please.

-- 
  Simon Riggs
  2ndQuadrant  http://www.2ndQuadrant.com