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Softpanorama
(slightly skeptical)
Open Source Software Educational Society |
May the
source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
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Perl Scripting for Open Source
Databases
The best collection of links to start is not this page but
Pal's Linux RDBMS Library.
My page is pretty rudimentary and currently not maintained
well as my current work and research interests are more in OS security area.
But still it was useful for my students before and might be useful for somebody
now. So I decided to keep it on the WEB.
Taking into account a poor shape of most imbed database
languages, Linux+Apache+MySQL+ PHP combination (or Linux+Apache+PostgreSQL+PHP)
at least for WEB applications looks comparative to proprietary offerings.
Using Python is the other possibility. I feel that adding procedural components
to SQL is a stupid idea and the only reasonable way to go is to use a decent
scripting language. Java is another possibility and it has strong
typing. Although it is almost an industry standard (Cobol 2000 ;-), and
I would like to warn you that IMHO it's not about scripting and thus is
neither provide high productivity typical for scripting language, no high
performance typical for compiled languages (it's getting better). A lot
of organizations spend millions of dollars on Java interfaces with databases
with marginal or oven negative results as for development or support costs.
They would get the same or better result much quicker and for a fraction
of money with any decent scripting language.
If you need really large database I would see first if the
database design is implementable under
PostgreSQL. for historical reason I prefer Perl, but this is for only
historical reasons. For smaller databases MySQL is OK or in case you work
with WEB might even be a better bet (more literature, more open applications
to study, more people to consult about problems, etc). In case those two
are for some reason unsuitable Oracle on Solaris is a safe (but extremely
expensive) solution. Oracle on Linux is a questionable bet -- it you are
paying those huge money for the database you need a decent hardware and
the best OS the money can buy -- that means UltraSparc III and Solaris 9.
As an embeddable database Berkeley DB is an excellent solution.
I generally prefer
PostgreSQL which is free in true sense of the word (it is licensed under
BSD license), but of course you will be better off buying support
if you are doing something serious unless you want to became a PostreSQL
developer. But MySQL is a slightly stronger bet if we are talking
about <Web-server>>-<scriptinglanguage>-<database>
troika. Actually apache-PHP-MySQL is a very strong development
platform.
Note: Please remember that for large projects
changing databases is a very painful experience that should be avoided as
much as possible.
Again, this page should be viewed only after
Pal's Linux RDBMS Library:
This site is a compilation of the best free online
readings about relational databases on Linux. If you're a Linux RDBMS/database
administrator, a database designer/developer, or simply a Linux user
with database ambitions, you'll find links to valuable resources here:
articles, papers, and books on various aspects of relational database
management. Needless to say, much of this material is more or less applicable
to other (UNIX) environments, too.
Good luck !
Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov
Notes:
- This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help
You For Free) site written by people for whom English
is not a native language.
Some amount of grammar and spelling errors should be
expected.
- The site contain some broken links
as it develops like a living tree...
Please try to use Google, Open directory,
etc. to find a replacement link (see
HOWTO search the WEB for details). We would appreciate
if you can
mail us a correct link.
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About: Ora2Pg is a Perl module to export an Oracle database schema
to a PostgreSQL compatible schema. It connects your Oracle database, extracts
its structure, and generates an SQL script that you can load into your PostgreSQL
database. It dumps the database schema (tables, views, sequences, indexes,
grants) with primary, unique, and foreign keys into PostgreSQL syntax without
editing the SQL code generated. It also dump Oracle data into PostgreSQL
DB as online process or into a file. You can choose what columns can be
exported for each table.
Changes: This release add extraction of a function-based index
that appears as SYS_NC, and a new configuration option to not export alter
sequence after data export
Most of the applications I've worked with over the years have been
enterprise applications requiring the management of lots of data.
Development teams working on such projects
often treat the database as a completely separate entity from the application.
This sometimes stems from an organizational structure that separates
the database team from the application-development teams. Other times,
it's simply what teams are used to doing. Either way, I've found that
this separation leads to some of the following practices (or lack thereof):
- Manually applying changes to the database
- Not sharing database changes with other members of the team
- Inconsistent approaches to applying (database or data) changes
- Ineffective manual mechanisms for managing changes from one
database version to the next
These are inefficient practices that leave developers out of sync
with data changes. Moreover, they can cause the application's users
to experience problems with inconsistent or corrupt data.
Figure 1 illustrates the manual approach that's often used on software
development projects. Manual changes are often inconsistently applied
and error prone, and they can make it difficult to undo what's already
been done or analyze the history of database changes over time. For
example, a DBA might remember to apply changes to the lookup data on
one occasion, but a developer might forget to insert this data later
into the same table.
You can avoid the manual approach's pitfalls
by implementing a database change strategy that minimizes human intervention.
Through a combination of practices and tools, you can use a consistent
and repeatable process for applying changes to your database and data.
In this article, I'll cover:
- Using a tool called LiquiBase to migrate between database versions
- How to run database migrations automatically
- Practices for consistently applying database changes
- Applying database refactorings using LiquiBase
If you are familiar with SQL, then the small relational database
language (SRDL) Sergei presents here will seem like an old friend. SRDL
is designed to provide your applications with flexibility in dealing
with database problems.
Sergei is a developer for Counselware in Montreal, Canada. He
can be contacted at savs@CS.McGill.CA
When developing software, we are often confronted with what appears
to be a typical database problem, yet ends up requiring operations some
database engines can't deliver. Obviously, what we need in such situations
is a tool that lets us quickly create custom, specialized features.
The tool I present in this article -- a small relational database language
called SRDL -- is designed to provide applications with a considerable
amount of flexibility in dealing with database problems. If you are
familiar with SQL, you will find a lot of similarities in SRDL. There
are differences between the two languages, of course, primarily in the
definition of relations, structure of operators, and typing scheme.
SRDL is implemented in C++ (using template classes). The current
implementation is about 2500 lines of code. It should compile under
GCC and most other modern C++ compilers, and run on practically any
platform. The implementation can either be used interactively or embedded
into C++ applications that call member functions implementing the operators
explicitly. The complete SRDL source code (distributed as freeware)
is available electronically; see "Programmer's Services," page 3.
There are two distinguishable levels in the SRDL implementation --
the lower-storage level and the upper-manipulation level. There is a
minimal interface between the two, and all algorithmic complexity of
operators is in the upper level, with the lower level providing a way
to read or write into some particular format on some storage. Multiple
implementations of the lower level are possible, so that relations can
be stored in different formats (or even in different storage areas;
for example, placed into memory to speed up execution of consecutive
operators).
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Victor R. Rivarola S.
- Subject: MySQL? Not even in the race. ( Apr 24, 2007, 23:09:27
) |
Don't beleive me? Make a file named mysql.sql
and feed it into mysql:
CREATE TABLE A
(ID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY
);
CREATE TABLE B
(ID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY
,A INT NOT NULL REFERENCES A(ID)
);
-- These statements should fail because of
-- referential integrity.
INSERT INTO B (ID,A) VALUES (5,5);
INSERT INTO A (ID) VALUES (5);
-- If we got this far, we can already laugh
at this "database"'s referential integrity.
-- Now lets check data type safety.
INSERT INTO B (ID,A) VALUES ('A',7);
-- MySQL and SQLite both finish these statements
succesfully, showing that any referal to them as database should
be enough to make anybody knowleadgable die of laugher.
-- Now, let us test the contents of both A
and B.
SELECT * FROM A:
SELECT * FROM B;
Run this script if you dare on a MySQL server.
It will spit on your face:
ID
5
ID A
5 5
0 7
Feed it like this:
cat mysql.sql | mysql database_name
Note that if you copy the script to the clipboard
and then paste it back into the MySQL console, it will at least
give you a warning when you try to insert 'A' into ID, but it
will go on happily and do it. Better, but not enough.
Any database that will let you execute those
commands in that order is not fit for a children's toy.
MySQL does, Postgres doesn't. Microsoft Access
doesn't either, so it is a better database than MySQL.
Yes, I know about
InnoDB. However, it is not the default table type.
Instead, MyISAM piece of junk is.
Which means that of all the people who use MySQL, very few actually
use InnoDB. So, argument is moot.
Besides, to use InnoDB you would need to add
a "TYPE=InnoDB" after the closing parenthesis and before the
final semicolon. This totally non-standard "feature" (MS style).
Besides how does this helps the type check
misfeature? It doesn't. Once again you must resort to
a nonstandard, nondefault, totally unknown, mode change command
to fix it.
I would end up calling MySQL a toy, but even
that would be WAY too generous.
As for the fact of its popularity, if you
believe that fallacious argument you would have to conclude
the obviously untrue statement that Microsoft Windows
XP is much, much, much better than Linux.
|
Make your MySQL server fly with these server tuning tips
07 Jun 2007 (IBM DeveloperWorks)
Applications using the LAMP (Linux®, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl) architecture
are constantly being developed and deployed. But often the server administrator
has little control over the application itself because it's written
by someone else. This
series of three articles discusses many of the server configuration
items that can make or break an application's performance. This third
article, the last in the series, focuses on tuning the database layer
for maximum efficiency.
"We are announcing today that there will be no VFP 10"
We have been asked about our plans for a new version of VFP. We are
announcing today that there will be no VFP 10. VFP9 will continue to
be supported according to our existing policy with support through 2015
(http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=7992).
We will be releasing SP2 for Visual FoxPro 9 this summer as planned,
providing fixes and additional support for Windows Vista.
Additionally, as you know, we’ve been working on a project codenamed
Sedna for the past year or so. Sedna is built using the extensibility
model of VFP9 and provides a number of new features including enhanced
connectivity to SQL Server, integration with parts of the .NET framework,
support for search using Windows Desktop Search and Windows Vista as
well as enhanced access to VFP data from Visual Studio.
Concurrently, the community has been using CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com)
to enhance VFP using these same capabilities in the
VFPx and
VFPy projects. Some of these
community driven enhancements include:
- Support for GDI+
- An enhanced class browser
- Support for Windows Desktop Alerts
- An object oriented menu system
- Integration with MSBuild
- A rule-based code analysis tool similar to fxCop in Visual Studio
- An Outlook Control Bar control
To reiterate, today we are announcing that we are not planning on
releasing a VFP 10 and will be releasing the completed Sedna work on
CodePlex at no charge. The components written as part of Sedna will
be placed in the community for further enhancement as part of our shared
source initiative. You can expect to see the Sedna code on CodePlex
sometime before the end of summer 2007.
The VFP team
Microsoft Visual FoxPro Roadmap
The VFP team made a special announcement to the community on
March 13, 2007. The team has announced that there will be no VFP 10.
VFP 9 will continue to be supported as per the support policy (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=7992)
through 2015.
After the release of Visual FoxPro 9.0 and Visual FoxPro 9.0 Service
Pack1, the Visual FoxPro team at Microsoft has been working on a new
project code-named Sedna. Sedna takes advantage of enhancements in Visual
FoxPro 9.0. The primary goal of Sedna is to expand on the ability of
Visual FoxPro-based solutions to better integrate with other Microsoft
products and technologies.
Features in Sedna will target Visual FoxPro interoperability with
application components created using Visual Studio 2005, the .NET Framework
2.0 and SQL Server 2005. Sedna will also help improve the ability for
Visual FoxPro 9.0 solutions to be successfully deployed on Windows Vista.
Sedna is planned to be released before the end of Summer of 2007.
Additional information can be found in the transcript of theVisual
FoxPro DevCon 2005 Interview with Alan Griver and Ken Levy from
June 2005, as well as the September 30th 2005 audio podcast
FoxShow #24: Interview with Ken Levy - both interviews discuss details
of the Visual FoxPro Roadmap. The complete SouthwestFox 2005 keynote
slide deck on the Visual FoxPro Roadmap and community news now online,
1.6MB PPT download
SouthwestFox2005_Keynote.ppt.
There are two pillars for the main themes of Sedna,Interoperability
and Extensibility. Some of the extensibility enhancements will
target report system features like additional report output file types.
For interoperability, the areas (in priority) including the following
upcoming Microsoft products and technologies:
- .NET Framework 2.0 with Visual Studio 2005
- SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2005 Express
- Windows Vista
- Windows Communication Foundation (code named Indigo)
- Windows Presentation Foundation (code named Avalon)
Sedna Feature Overview documents
describe the various aspects of Sedna.
Visual FoxPro will also release a service pack that includes several
critical fixes, including those required to better support Windows Vista.
As indicated in prior public statements, Microsoft does not plan
to merge Visual FoxPro into Visual Studio .NET, nor are there plans
to create a new Visual FoxPro .NET programming language. Visual
FoxPro will remain stand-alone Win32 based, and will run on 64-bit Windows
in 32-bit compatibility mode.
For more information about Visual FoxPro, including answers toVisual
FoxPro FAQ, go to the
Visual FoxPro Developer Center Web site. at
http://msdn.com/vfoxpro.
(Updated: March 2007)
Not true, but interesting :-)
"Microsoft has announced that it will
open-source the core portions of the Visual FoxPro DBMS software
to its CodePlex community development site. At the same time, Microsoft
has announced that it will no longer be making new versions of the FoxPro
DBMS."
Comment
Microsoft will be releasing the completed Sedna work on CodePlex
at no charge. The components written as part of Sedna will be placed
in the community for further enhancement as part of our shared source
initiative.
You can expect to see the Sedna code on CodePlex sometime before the
end of summer 2007.
NOTE that the released part is Sedna
and NOT VFP nor VFP core elements!
Sedna is a project Microsoft has been working on for the past year or
so. Sedna is built using the extensibility model of VFP9 and provides
features like better connectivity to SQL Server, integration with parts
of the .NET framework, wrappers for Vista APIs to make it easier to
write applications that run on Vista machines, as well as better support
for VFP data in Visual Studio.
The VFP Community Message is at:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vfoxpro/bb308952.aspx
Thanks!
Sun used to provide slightly cheaper support then Red Hat. Oracle undercut
this price so this advantage is lost. Still Solaris stands on its own as
an enterprise OS (and it serves as Oracle standard 64-bit platform) and
in this role it competes more with AIX and HP-UX then Linux (although X86-64
changed that). So this development might hurt Sun a little bit on
low end but it is not applicable to midrange and high-end server were Oracle
mainly used. Actually IBM AIX is the major Sun's competitor in his space
due to Power 5 CPUs scalability. But all three major Unix vendors have sizable
Oracle deployment (surprisingly HP-UX is a strong contender in this space
and many large corporations use HP-UX to run Oracle).
According to WimCoekaerts, Oracle's director of Linux engineering,
Oracle's own production servers are
rolled out with Linux -- not Solaris -- and
Linux is now the de facto standard platform
for 9,000 Oracle developers.
Sun is quick to point out the technical advantages of Solaris over
Linux, and to be fair, they are numerous; score a point for Sun. What's
more, Solaris is open source, just like Linux.
... ... ...
Sun says that, when you run the numbers, Red Hat's subscription pricing
is expensive compared with what you get with a Solaris license. Oracle
apparently agrees, because its baseline Linux support contract will
be priced at half what Red Hat charges.
In short, whatever the effect Oracle's
Unbreakable Linux has on Red Hat, it will also have a heavy impact
on Sun.
For the list of systems (currently approximately a dozen) see
Oracle Validated Configurations
August 14, 2006 Oracle Validated
Configurations are pre-tested, validated architectures with software,
hardware, storage and networking components together with documented
best practices for deployment. Oracle and its strategic partners offer
and recommend these configurations to enable end-users to deploy fully
tested solutions to achieve standardization with high performance, scalability
and reliability while lowering infrastructure costs.
... ... ....
Oracle is seeing significant end-user demand for Linux x86-64 architectures
and is fully committed to developing, advancing
and promoting the 64-bit commodity Linux. All new chipsets
and servers are now being shipped with x86-64 architecture, thereby
offering a much wider hardware selection to end-users than some of the
other architectures. Therefore, Oracle has
chosen to initially make Oracle Validated Configurations available on
Linux x86-64.
Oracle is involved with Linux, Coekaerts says, foremost because Oracle
uses Linux. A lot of Linux. Right now almost 10,000 Linux servers are
in use internally at Oracle. Essentially, every production server at
Oracle is a Linux server. In addition, about 9,000 developers at Oracle
are using Linux to develop products.
A lot of that can be attributed to one
simple factor: cost savings. "We use Linux for the same reason all the
other companies are using Linux," Coekaerts says.
But there's more to it than that. The Oracle database is a large,
complex application that places a lot of demands on the underlying OS.
When Oracle wants to experiment, changing how the OS works to optimize
database performance, it's easier to do with an open source, community-driven
OS than a proprietary one. Hence the number of Linux kernel contributions
from Oracle engineers; as a fast research and prototyping tool, Linux
can't be beat.
The end result of all this in-house Linux experience is a whole lot
of in-house expertise. In a way, then, it was only natural for Oracle
to enter into the Linux support business. It's not widely recognized,
but Oracle has provided enterprise Linux support through its
Unbreakable Linux program for about four years. Now, with
its new Oracle Validated Configurations initiative, it is poised to
take that a step further.
An Oracle Validated Configuration is
essentially what it sounds like. Oracle and its partners have selected
specific combinations of hardware and software -- including server hardware,
chip sets, Linux OSes, drivers, and storage -- and subjected them to
approximately 60 to 70 tests designed to tax each system to the limits
of its performance. The Validated label means you're getting a complete
system that has been fully configured, certified, and optimized to run
Oracle, down to specific kernel module parameters.
The Oracle stamp of approval doesn't just benefit Oracle users. Because
Oracle is such a heavyweight application, it tends to highlight problems
more quickly than other kinds of software. A system that runs Oracle
well is almost guaranteed to run other applications well.
By comparison, Coekaerts says it typically takes customers nine to
12 months to get full server stacks properly configured when they do
it themselves. "We're saving lots of people's time, including our own,"
he says.
But the bigger picture is one of perception. Over the long term,
Coekaerts would like to see Oracle recognized for the contributions
it has made to Linux throughout the years. As the world's second-largest
software company, Oracle's influence over the industry isn't going away,
but its reputation as an outsider in the world of open source just might.
"We're doing Linux the way we should be doing it," Coekaerts says.
"We're trying to use our influence to do something good."
On October 25, 2006 Oracle announced its own support for a clone of
Red Hat. It is evident that Oracle will eat Red Hat lunch, but this is also
a severe blow to Suse (making Novell almost irrelevant in enterprise Linux
space). Some people think that this is a revenge for Jboss, but big
business is not about retribution. Still details are pretty interesting
and somewhat damaging for Solaris at mid-range: Sun should be very careful
with licensing and cost of support to avoid the falloff...
Currently, Red Hat only provides bug fixes for the latest version
of its software. This often requires customers to upgrade to a new version
of Linux software to get a bug fixed. Oracle's new Unbreakable
Linux program will provide bug fixes to future, current, and back releases
of Linux. In other words, Oracle will provide the same level
of enterprise support for Linux as is available for other operating
systems.
Oracle is offering its Unbreakable Linux program for substantially
less than Red Hat currently charges for its best support. "We believe
that better support and lower support prices will speed the adoption
of Linux, and we are working closely with our partners to make that
happen," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "Intel is a development partner.
Dell and HP are resellers and support partners. Many others are signed
up to help us move Linux up to mission critical status in the data center."
"Oracle's Unbreakable Linux program is available to all Linux
users for as low as $99 per system per year," said Oracle President
Charles Phillips. "You do not have to be a user of Oracle software to
qualify. This is all about broadening the success of Linux. To get Oracle
support for Red Hat Linux all you have to do is point your Red Hat server
to the Oracle network. The switch takes less than a minute."
"We think it's important not to fragment the market," said Oracle's
Chief Corporate Architect Edward Screven. "We will maintain compatibility
with Red Hat Linux. Every time Red Hat distributes a new version we
will resynchronize with their code. All we add are bug fixes, which
are immediately available to Red Hat and the rest of the community.
We have years of Linux engineering experience. Several Oracle employees
are Linux mainline maintainers."
SQLite is a small C library that implements a self-contained, embeddable,
zero-configuration SQL database engine. The primary benefits of using
SQLite is that you can create a self-contained database in your
application.
What is so great about this? Well, for starters you can:
- Manipulate data inside your program using standard SQL construct.
- Zero database configuration – but you get database-like capabilities
for your program.
- Simple, easy to use
API.
You can actually use SQLite with just 3 main API.
- Self-contained: no external dependencies.
- Faster
than popular client/server database engines for most common operations.
With SQLite, it is possible for you to distribute single application
binary, with almost complete database and SQL querying capabilities.
Compared to another embedded database such Berkeley DB, which offers
just key and value assignment, SQLite is much more versatile and easy
to use. You can just use all the SQL syntax that you have become familiar
with to manipulate your data. The data itself is stored inside a single
disk file on your local file-system, which can grow to a maximum of
2 terabytes (241 bytes) in size. For more information, visit
SQLite site.
Under Ubuntu, to install SQLite, issue the following command:
sudo apt-get install sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev libsqlite3-0 sqlite3-doc
|
Oracle played a big card when it bought
InnoDB, the most popular way to inject data
into the open source mySQL database.
Monday mySQL responds by getting
Solid™ Information Technology, a proprietary
database vendor, to take its solidDB Storage
Engine for MySQL open source, under the
GPL, starting in June.
Solid has its base in telecommunications
and transaction processing, which had been
considered a completely different market
from the small fry mySQL supplies. It has
3 million copies out at places like Alcatel,
Cisco, EMC, HP, NEC, Nokia, and Nortel.
The addition of Solid technology to mySQL,
the company said, puts mySQL into the enterprise
league and makes it a direct threat to Oracle.
But does it? After all, Solid is in that
enterprise market, albeit a niche within
it. Solid is not going away, and this is
supposed to be a complementary deal.
So I talked to Paola Lubet, vice president
of marketing for Solid, She told me her
14-year old company had been looking for
a way into the broader enterprise market
for some time, and sees open source as a
"go to market" opportunity.
"Our decision at the moment is to go
into the open source track and use mySQL
as a channel. So we’re going to make available
code that works only with mySQL. On the
side we have a proprietary line of products."
Going to open source with mySQL was also
a comfortable decision for Solid.
Both companies were founded in Finland,
and still do most development there. The
U.S. arms of both companies are in the same
building in Cupertino.
Stacey Quandt, research director for
the
Aberdeen Group in Boston, told me the
deal also opens new markets to mySQL. "For
years mySQL has defined itself as not being
a competitor (in the enterprise space),
but with a transactional engine that gap
can be narrowed," she said.
Web 2.0 projects built on mySQL can also
move ahead with confidence they’re ready
as they move into transactions and as users
"rush to the rail" to support them.
"There’s more work to be done, but the
gap is narrowing," Quandt said of mySQL.
"What I would look for in terms of feature
initiatives and measuring success is for
mySQL to now get into telco and manufacturing
and other verticals." And for Solid? "The
network effects of open source may help
them grow their installed base."
You might say that Oracle’s open source
problems are far from…Finnished.
A recent
interview has DBAs talking about the merits of the open source PostgreSQL
database management system (DBMS) as compared to Oracle – and their
opinions truly run the gamut.
In that interview, Robert Treat and Jason Gilmore, co-authors of
"Beginning PHP and PostgreSQL 8: From Novice to Professional," said
that PostgreSQL 8.0 is much more than just a back end for Web sites.
In many situations, the authors say, PostgreSQL can be used instead
of or as a complement to Oracle and other DBMSs.
DBAs responding to the interview said they liked the low cost of
the open source database, while others said that Oracle's rich feature
set is second to none.
Jim Allen, a longtime Oracle professional and an independent technology
consultant, says he has had considerable experience with PostgreSQL
7.4, but not the newest version, 8.1.
Allen believes that PostgreSQL is much more suitable for the
casual database developer, such as Java developers who need a back end
for [Java
Database Connectivity] access.
"PostgreSQL has a solid set of features now that includes most if
not all of what these developers would ever use," Allen said. "Oracle
has a feature set several orders of magnitude more rich, but few if
any of these features would ever be used by this group."
Another thing Allen likes about PostgreSQL is the fact that the stored
procedure compilation is transactional.
"You can recompile a stored procedure on a live system, and only
transactions starting after that compilation will see the changes,"
he said. "Transactions in process can complete with the old version.
Oracle just blocks on the busy procedure."
Matt S., a DBA, said that he has successfully used PostgreSQL 8 in
conjunction with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005, as well as with
Oracle 10g.
"I was impressed thoroughly with the ease of implementation, as well
as compatibility and installation of PostgreSQL, considering its open
source nature," he said. "Using it in enterprise applications [and]
Web site situations was relatively painless [and] a simplified security
structure made it very appealing."
Another user, who did not want to be identified, said that
it makes more sense to compare PostgreSQL to OracleXE, a slimmed down
and free version of the Oracle DBMS. The user said that like
PostgreSQL, OracleXE is easy to install and use. He added that OracleXE
includes Apex/HTMLDB to help developers quickly build and deploy Web
applications.
"I've used PostgreSQL in the past [and] it is fine," the user wrote.
"However, Oracle is stepping up and making a pretty good product and
making it easier for organizations to upgrade their database systems
down the road from the free version to their other versions of their
product."
Richard Goulet, a senior Oracle DBA with a New England-area power
components manufacturer, said that he uses Oracle and PostgreSQL side-by-side
for numerous tasks.
Goulet agrees that PostgreSQL is easy to use, and he says it complies
with the SQL standard nicely. He adds that there is plenty of support
readily available for PostgreSQL through numerous mailing lists. But
that's where Goulet's fondness for the open source software ends.
PostgreSQL doesn't behave as nicely as Oracle when the system fills
up, Goulet said. In those instances, the system tends to crash quickly.
Goulet said that setting up a TCP/IP connection capability with PostgreSQL
is hardly an intuitive process. To do it, he says, one needs to modify
the postgres.conf and pg_hba.conf files manually.
"The last big thing between PostgreSQL and Oracle that's really missing
is a gateway product from Oracle. These two don't talk to each other
except by externally built and most times [highly customized] connectors,"
Goulet said. "An Oracle gateway to PostgreSQL would mean a lot to those
who use both products happily."
Josh Berkus, who works with the PostgreSQL Project Core Team, said
there are in fact third party tools available on the Web which help
integrate Oracle and PostgreSQL data. They include Ora2pg and DBI-Link,
he said.
Within the past two years, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft have all released
freely available versions of their flagship database servers, a move
that would have been unheard of just a few years ago. While their respective
representatives would argue the move was made in order to better accommodate
the needs of all users, it's fairly clear that continued pressure from
open source alternatives such as
MySQL and
PostgreSQL have caused these database juggernauts to rethink their
strategies within this increasingly competitive market.
While PostgreSQL's adoption rate continues to accelerate, some
folks wonder why that rate isn't even steeper given its impressive array
of features. One can speculate that many of the reasons for
not considering its adoption tend to be based on either outdated or
misinformed sources.
In an effort to dispel some of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt)
surrounding this impressive product, instead, I'll put forth several
of the most commonplace reasons companies have for not investigating
PostgreSQL further.
Reason #1: It doesn't run on Windows
PostgreSQL has long supported every modern Unix-compatible operating
system, and ports are also available for
Novell NetWare and
OS/2. With the 8.0 release, PostgreSQL's support for all mainstream
operating systems was complete, as it included a native Windows port.
Now, you can install the PostgreSQL database on a workstation or
laptop with relative ease, thank to an installation wizard similar to
that used for installing Microsoft Word or Quicken.
Reason #2: No professional development and administration tools
Most users who are unfamiliar with open source projects tend to think
DB administrators manage them entirely through a series of cryptic shell
commands. Indeed, while PostgreSQL takes advantage of the powerful command-line
environment, there are a number of graphical-based tools available for
carrying out tasks such as administration and database design.
The following list summarizes just a few of the tools available to
PostgreSQL developers:
- Database modeling: Several commercial and open source products
are at your disposal for data modeling, some of which include
Visual Case and
Data Architect.
- Administration and development: There are numerous impressive
efforts going on in this area, and three products are particularly
promising.
pgAdmin III has a particularly long development history and
is capable of handling practically any task ranging from simple
table creation to managing replication across multiple servers.
Navicat PostgreSQL offers features similar to pgAdmin III and
is packaged in a very well-designed interface. A good, Web-based
tool is
phpPgAdmin.
- Reporting: PostgreSQL interfaces with all mainstream reporting
tools, including
Crystal Reports,
Cognos ReportNet, and the increasingly popular open source reporting
package
JasperReports.
Reason #3: PostgreSQL doesn't support my language
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| Proprietary vendors' free
databases: |
| Database heavyweights IBM,
Microsoft and Oracle have all recently released
free versions of their products. More information
about the respective products can be found by
navigating to the following links:
|
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Today's enterprise often relies on an assortment of programming languages,
and if the sheer number of PostgreSQL API contributions available are
any indication, the database is being used in all manner of environments.
The following links point to PostgreSQL interfaces for today's most
commonly used languages:
C++,
C#,
JDBC,
Perl,
PHP,
Python,
Ruby and
Tcl.
Interfaces even exist for some rather unexpected languages, with
Ada,
Common Lisp and
Pascal all coming to mind.
Reason #4: There's nobody to blame when something goes wrong
The misconception that open source projects lack technical support
options is curious, particularly if one's definition of support does
not involve simply having somebody to blame when something goes wrong.
You can find the answers to a vast number of support questions in
the official PostgreSQL manual, which consists of almost 1,450 pages
of detailed documentation regarding every aspect of the database, ranging
from a synopsis of supported data types to system internals.
The documentation is available for
online perusal and downloading in PDF format. For more help, there
are a number of newsgroups accessible through Google groups, with topics
ranging across performance, administration, SQL construction, development
and general matters.
If you're looking for a somewhat more immediate response, hundreds
of PostgreSQL devotees can be found logged into IRC (irc.freenode.net
#postgresql?).
You can plug in to IRC chat clients for all common operating systems
(Windows
included) at any given moment. For instance, on a recent Wednesday
evening, there were more than 240 individuals logged into the channel.
Waking up the next morning, I found more than 252 logged in, including
a few well-known experts in the community. The conversation topics ranged
from helping newcomers get logged into their PostgreSQL installation
for the first time to advanced decision tree generation algorithms.
Everyone is invited to participate and ask questions no matter how simplistic
or advanced.
For those users more comfortable with a more formalized support environment,
other options exist.
CommandPrompt Inc.'s PostgreSQL packages range from one-time incident
support to 24x7 Web, e-mail and phone coverage. Recently,
Pervasive Software Inc. jumped into the fray, offering various support
packages in addition to consulting services. Open source services support
company
SpikeSource Inc. announced PostgreSQL support last summer, along
with integration of the database into its
SpikeSource Core Stack.
Reason #5: You (don't) get what you (don't) pay for
To put it simply, if you require a SQL standards-compliant database
with all of the features found in any enterprise-class product and capable
of storing terabytes of data while efficiently operating under heavy
duress, chances are PostgreSQL will quite satisfactorily meet your needs.
However, it doesn't come packaged in a nice box, nor will a sales representative
stand outside your bedroom window after you download it.
For applications that require Oracle to even function properly, consider
EnterpriseDB, a version of PostgreSQL, which has reimplemented features
such as data types, triggers, views and cursors that copy Oracle's behavior.
Just think of all the extra company coffee mugs you could purchase with
the savings.
... Using the open-standard
JDBC interface, Savvica ported its data to DB2 Express-C from MySQL
in less than a day, said Green.
Defections such as
Savvica's hearten big commercial database vendors, including Microsoft,
Oracle, IBM and even Sybase, which have all released free "express"
databases in the past six months.
Despite more robust
features, these hugely profitable databases have in recent years lost
mind share -- and, increasingly, customers -- to their open-source counterparts.
MySQL AB's success has epitomized the corporate revolt against the license
and support fees charged for commercial databases.
But the free express
databases are "significantly challenging the conventional wisdom about
commercial vs. open-source databases," said Peter O'Kelly, an analyst
at Burton Group.
The commercial database
vendors are opening a second front by adding support for application
frameworks popular with open-source users. On Tuesday, Zend Technologies
released software that enables developers to write applications interacting
with the Oracle database in the PHP scripting language.
"IBM and Oracle are
doing something similar to what MySQL has done: win the hearts and minds
of developers by giving them easier access to technologies," said Mike
Pinette, Zend's vice president of business development.
It's early, and the
success of the big commercial database vendors at wooing back software
developers -- who wield increasing influence over corporate buying decisions
-- is not yet clear.
In the area of database
instructional book sales, considered a good indicator of developer interest,
sales of SQL Server how-to books have surpassed MySQL books this year,
according to Roger Magoulis, director of research at leading publisher,
O'Reilly Media. He believes that interest is due more to the general
release of SQL Server 2005 last fall, rather than just its free edition
-- especially as sales of Oracle or DB2 how-to books have not increased
significantly since the release of their free versions.
Sybase says its Adaptive
Server Enterprise 15 express edition has been downloaded 45,000 times
since its September release, with "a lot of that converting into business,"
according to Marty Beard, Sybase's senior vice president of corporate
development and marketing.
Microsoft, which released
its first free database, MSDE, back in 1999, did not immediately provide
the number of downloads of SQL Server 2005 Express, which was released
last October. But Oracle said hundreds of thousands of developers and
students have downloaded Oracle XE since its beta release that same
month. IBM's DB2 Express-C was made generally available only in late
January.
In contrast, the latest
5.0 version of MySQL has been downloaded more than 6 million times since
October, said Zack Urlocker, vice president of marketing at the Cupertino,
Calif.-based firm. "Sure, the express versions are free, but they come
with very significant limitations, especially the lack of support,"
Urlocker said. "No enterprise customer will go into production with
a database that cannot be supported."
MySQL user Andy Meadows
said he hasn't been tempted to switch.
"Unless it's a large
CRM or identity management system, I've found MySQL to be robust and
scalable enough," said Meadows, president of Live Oak Interactive Inc.,
an Austin-based Web development and hosting firm. And while he acknowledges
that "you can do quite a bit within the parameters" of the express databases,
he fears that vendors will pressure him to upgrade to an expensive supported
version of their database.
Rajeev Kaula, a professor
in Missouri State University's information systems department, said
Oracle XE is easier to install than earlier "lite" Oracle databases
and helps teach students to program more efficiently.
"Students who honed
their skills on MySQL and PHP tend to treat databases only as a way
of storing tables," Kaula said. Learning on Oracle XE, "they are realizing
the power of transferring the business logic to the database itself."
The company has taken its Database 10g Express
Edition (XE), a stripped-down, free version of its flagship database
software, to general availability.
XE is exiting
beta mode, where it received strong global support from several
hundred thousand Java, .NET, PHP and Web developers and students.
Programmers use it to write database
applications on Windows and Linux platforms, Oracle said in a statement.
For example, Oracle said Missouri State
University computer science students use XE in their classes to get
a better feel for the Oracle database through procedures, functions
and triggers.
The software is built on the same code
base as Oracle Database 10g Release 2 and is compatible with all of
Oracle's database family of products. Oracle intended XE to have a simple
upgrade path for users who wish to upgrade and get the bells and whistles
associated with Database 10g standard and enterprise editions.
Database XE is available now on 32-bit
Windows and a slew of Linux operating systems: Debian, Mandriva Linux
2006 Power Pack+, Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 and SUSE Linux
10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Red Hat Fedora and Ubuntu.
The software can be downloaded for free
here.
Most Perl users are familiar with using
Perl to talk to databases. Perl's DBI is, along with ODBC and JDBC,
one of the most common and widely ported database client interfaces.
The DBI driver for PostgreSQL,
DBD::Pg,
is very well-maintained, and quite featureful. For example,
it recently acquired proper support for prepared statements. Previously,
the client library had emulated these, but with the latest DBD::Pg and
PostgreSQL distributions, you can get real prepared queries, which can
lead to big performance gains in some cases.
However, there is another way of using
Perl with PostgreSQL--writing little Perl programs that actually execute
inside of the server. This way of using Perl is less well known than
using the DBI driver, and is, as far as I know, unique to PostgreSQL.
It lets you do some very cool things that you just can't do in the client.
CA is selling its
Ingres database
technology to private equity firm Garnett & Helfrich Capital, which
is forming a new company to develop and market the open-source software.
Does anyone care? Where will Ingres
get it's market share from? Enterprise DB is sort of a different
animal and MySQL has such a huge user base it doesn't seem like
a great business move to launch yet another open source RDBMS database...especially
when Ingres isn't widely adopted in the enterprise and doesn't have
a niche that will get it in the door. Maybe I am missing something?
At last years LinuxWorld I moderated
panel of open source database company executives, including a guy
from CA who unfortunately became the target for everyone, especially
me, to attack. That was largely based on the fact that CA was treating
it as some noble offering to the community. But I still think Ingres
is an also-ran product without a big market.
Posted by Dave
Rosenberg on November 7, 2005 11:02 AM |
TrackBack (0)
I disagree with your comments. Being
the original database and enhanced to the level it is Ingres is
the most advance database in the market. It has a large customer
base who are loyal to Ingres. Running a small website is fine
one can use MySQL or anything else for that, but if you are doing
something serious, uou need a database which is as serious as Ingres.
Ingres scales really well, has great
backup and recovery, can work on multiple platforms, installs in
a flash and the best part is that with Ingres being such a mature
product you do not have to worry about stability of the system.
MySQL 5 is just coming out with some
very important database features which Ingres has had for years.
Ingres is the "real" database at
fraction of the cost of Oracle, but languished due to lack of promotion.
With G&H pumping in so much resources on it, I believe it can be
the best out there leaving MySQL far behind.
Cascade is a Web-based content management
system. It's based around the idea of organizing resources into a hierachy
of categories, much like Yahoo. Some features include generating static
or dynamic HTML, allowing user comments on ratings on resources, design
abstraction through templates, suggested addition and update management,
an auto-generated "What's New" page, support for related categories
and virtual subcategories, and more. It can use Postgres or MySQL as
its SQL database.
Postgresql AutoDoc has the ability to
output XML, which can be loaded into Dia to create a UML diagram of
the database (complete with table relations and descriptive information),
an HTML form for further detailed information, GraphViz .dot output,
and Docbook 4.1 style SGML for inclusion with project documentation
as an appendix. It works on any 7.x PostgreSQL-based database.
The libsite-db-perl module provides basic
and easy database-connectivity through both URLs (like 'postgres://user:password@myhost/mydatabase')
and standard DBD-parameters. This method should be useful for both beginners
and experts since it decreases the duplication of code and its nice
URL-based access.
AllCommerce is an e-commerce/content
application based on Perl and SQL92 databases which runs under Unix/Linux/Win2000
using SQL database engines (MySQL/Postgres/etc). In addition to a shopping
cart, it provides tools for content, merchandise, statistics, vendor,
order, and inventory. Its modular design allows it to be used as a complete
or partial solution.
dSQL is an SQL query tool for MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, MS- SQL, ODBC
drivers, and all supported Perl DBI drivers. It uses Glade and GTK-Perl.
At last summer’s Linux World expo, Computer
Associates International Inc. (CA) unveiled plans to open up the source
code to its Ingres R/3 database.
Ingres is used by thousands of customers,
but (these days) it’s far from a relational-database powerhouse. With
this in mind, CA sought to sweeten the pot, announcing a total of $1
million in prizes to encourage programmers to develop open-source tools
to migrate applications and data from DB2, Oracle, and other databases
to Ingres R/3.
Last week, CA announced the results of
its Ingres challenge. The winners were determined by a panel that included
Robin Bloor (of consultancy Hurwitz and Associates), JBoss architect
Gavin King, and Ingres founder Dr. Michael Stonebraker. Qualifying entries
had to ensure that applications running on Oracle, IBM, and other databases
could interoperate unmodified with Ingres.
By all accounts, the winning entries—called
Shift2Ingres, EzyMigrate, and DbConverter—do so splendidly. What’s more,
they also amount to a victory of sorts for the Indian subcontinent.
Two of the three winning entries were submitted by programming teams
based in India (New Delhi and Kerala, respectively). The third, for
the record, was written by Bipin Prasad, a programmer from New York.
Shift2Ingres, which took home the biggest
prize ($400,000) is a schema-, data-, and application-migration toolset
for Oracle. It’s based on a Java GUI that lets DBAs configure and perform
the migration of tables and underlying data, views, grants, sequences,
PL/SQL procedures and functions, triggers and other schema objects from
Oracle to Ingres r3 databases.
EzyMigrate, one of the two $300,000 winners,
is a database-migration tool for SQL Server. It uses ODBC to connect
to discover database tables resident in SQL Server and displays table
definitions to end users by means of a Web-based front end. DBAs can
use the interface to make modifications to the table definitions, and
the tool itself creates and populates the tables in the target database.
DBAs can use EzyMigrate to selectively perform individual table migrations,
but the tool also provides models for several different data migration
scenarios, including drop-and-replace, delete-and-replace, and append.
The final winner, DbConverter, also took
home a $300,000 purse. The database-migration program can convert tables,
views, synonyms, indexes, triggers, constraints, groups, roles, users,
permissions, sequences and other schema components from MySQL. DbConverter
uses a Java-based UI that lets DBAs select not just which components
they want to use for a migration, but also what kind of migration they
want to perform—e.g., directly into the target database or by means
of generating a SQL script and relevant output files so they can perform
the migration externally. The tool also supports plug-ins that can be
written to parse and convert associated applications.
"Oracle is the latest database vendor
to put its weight behind the PHP scripting language for business, with
a new tool that integrates PHP applications with its databases.
"Oracle and PHP tool developer Zend Technologies
have developed a PHP engine called Zend Core for Oracle. The tool, to
be released for free in the summer, will integrate Oracle's databases
and Zend's PHP environment..."
Oracle: Open source hucksters and challenge
Oracle Vice President of Technology Marketing
Robert Shimp, whose company is among the only database providers not
trending toward open source in some way, was critical of some open source
moves by database makers in an interview with NewsForge. Shimp did not
name names, but he noted that while Oracle welcomes the market growth
and competition from open source databases, much of the open source
database noise is centered on "orphanware."
Shimp cites companies "using open source because
they see it as a marketing mechanism -- a tool for creating hype or
awareness of older products. This is 'orphanware' -- software
they want to abandon that has no real commercial value, so they put
it out and see what happens."
Shimp elaborated by dividing open source database
strategies into two categories: "serious" open source databases that
provide transparency, allowing developers and users to learn and share;
and the "hucksters" putting out abandonware.
In terms of competition from open source,
Shimp said Oracle views the other databases as an asset in bringing
new database users to the market, calling Oracle's biggest competitor
the filing cabinet. Quite often, users are introduced to databases
through a free or open source database, then move to Oracle as their
needs become greater, according to Shimp, who called innovation Oracle's
challenge and advantage.
"I'm confident we'll be able to create cool things
that will get people to use Oracle," he said. "But I love the challenge
the open source guys are providing."
IBM: Seeding the market
IBM program manager Les King, who touted Big Blue's
move to open its Cloudscape database through the Apache incubator project
Derby,
said he took exception to the idea that Cloudscape was a case of abandonware.
"It had a very thriving life on its own before we decided to open source
it," King said.
He also indicated that like Oracle, IBM sees open
source as a way to gain more market share by catering to developers
with open source databases.
"There is an opportunity for vendors offering
base code to hopefully seed their own market," King said. "Certainly,
if we consider the seeding play, you need something to seed and Derby
is perfectly set up to start seeding DB2 Express."
While there is
talk of IBM open sourcing parts of its full-featured, enterprise-class
DB2, King discounted the idea, referring to the complexity and value
of the code.
"If you take the multiple millions of lines of
code [in DB2], it naturally doesn't lend itself to dumping all of that
code out there," King said. "In addition, today, there is a lot of intellectual
property in the software we sell, and we wouldn't want to make it all
open source."
King did anticipate more open source moves from
more database players, however.
"I think you'll start to see more choice as companies
do take pieces of software and make it open source because that's what
they're targeting," King said, referring to developers. "It doesn't
seem to be slowing."
IBM and Oracle say they are happy to see open
source bring new users to the overall database market, but OS database
players say that their users prefer to stick with open source, which
is now rivaling DB2 and Oracle, even at the higher level.
CA: Commodity competition
Computer Associates Senior Vice President of Development
Tony Gaughan referred to a sort of seeding, indicating his company --
which this year
released its Ingres database under its own
Trusted Open Source License, sees open source as a chance to increase
mindshare and foster innovation by collaborating with its community.
Gaughan, who said the Ingres open sourcing is
a return to the database's "roots" as an open source project at UC Berkeley,
also pointed to the database as another instance of commoditization.
"Customers do not set out to buy a database, they
purchase an application that requires a database," Gaughan said.
"We have seen a need and demand for an enterprise-class,
open source database solution," Gaughan said. "MySQL is suited to read-only
operations and serving up HTML content; PostgreSQL has a much richer
feature set but has scalability problems and doesn't have a company
behind it providing enterprise-level support; Ingres has a mature, proven,
scalable transactional database, and includes clustering, peer-to-peer
replication, and distributed query support."
In response to calls that the CA Trusted Open
Source License is not OSI-approved and the Ingres moves are half-hearted,
Gaughan said the elements not included in the available source were
B1 security and the spatial object library for the database, which CA
does not own.
"The security component that was removed was B1
security, which is a level of security used exclusively in situations
of national security and is only available on B1 secure operating systems
such as Sun CMW," Gaughan said. He added CA is working on a new 3-D,
OpenGIS-compliant spatial object solution the company plans to develop
with its community.
PostgreSQL: Others are too little too
late
PostgreSQL
core team member Josh Berkus said the open source moves by other companies
are both a marketing play and done for technical reasons.
"I think that recent events in databases have
vindicated the idea that open source will continue to spread through
the software world, annexing one sector at a time," Berkus said in an
email. "It's not a question of if software companies will need an open
source strategy, but when."
While it might have been a competitive concern
if Sybase and CA were making Linux and open source moves three years
ago, Berkus indicated it is now the larger, older companies that are
at risk from open source progress.
"My feeling is that both of these are good examples
of proprietary software companies worried about being left behind by
open source," Berkus said.
Berkus said databases are a likely part of the
software stack to go open source because they are infrastructure software,
making it easier to attract developers. However, Berkus questioned whether
Sybase or CA could reap the same benefits as would a database that was
born open source or free.
"In the case of CA, I'm going to reserve judgment
until its license is approved by the Open Source Institute," Berkus
said. "Right now, it looks like more PR than substance; unlike IBM,
CA has not made Ingres separate from CA product management, which means
that they're rather unlikely to attract developers. Compare the failure
of both Borland's Interbase and SAP's SAP-DB as open source projects
-- no offense to
Firebird
DB, which became a dynamic project after they forked it away from
Borland. CA seems to be repeating the same mistakes."
As for Sybase, Berkus said the likely reason the
competitor released the free version for Linux was a
Software Development
Magazine survey, which suggested PostgreSQL was pushing Sybase out
of the market. Sybase did not respond to that contention.
Berkus said regardless of what other vendors are
doing, the open source databases are catching up and in some instances
surpassing the proprietary competition.
"PostgreSQL and even MySQL have surpassed Sybase
in several areas, even if we lag behind in others," Berkus said. "PostgreSQL
is particularly a threat to Sybase because our very robust, fully ACID
transaction support, high availability, and support for custom statistical
functions and complex queries make PostgreSQL perfectly suitable for
a variety of financial applications."
MySQL: Everyone wants to be a toy
For
MySQL CEO Marten
Mickos, the free and open source database cavalcade from the old veterans
is welcome news, and a validation that open source databases are now
competing at the highest levels.
"We think it is good news for users, and we welcome
these products to the open source world, Ingres, and the Linux world,
Sybase," Mickos said. "We have predicted for some time that this would
happen. It validates the MySQL business model. Two years ago, people
said MySQL was a toy. Now, apparently everyone wants to be a toy!"
Mickos said the open source trend among
databases is because of a combination of things, and is also, "a typical
reaction from a large company that would like an older product to become
more popular."
"Some years ago, Borland did the same thing with
Interbase, and later they withdrew from the open source world," Mickos
said.
However, the MySQL chief did refer to the
MaxDB
database, formerly known as SAP DB, as an example of older, closed code
that was successfully nurtured with open source.
"MaxDB may be the only DBMS that started as closed
source and was later successfully open sourced," Mickos said. "SAP AG
open sourced it some years ago, and today, our company is the open source
and commercial channel for MaxDB. It is a very robust, enterprise-level
database and it powers an increasing number of SAP R/3 applications
all over the world. It is also being used more and more by cost-conscious
enterprises, by government agencies, and in developing economies. So
here you have a great example that a DBMS with a long history can indeed
enjoy new growth."
Sybase: Sidestepping corporate approval
While it has not released its Adaptive Server
Enterprise (ASE) database as open source, Sybase has scored success
with the
free Linux version of its database. Citing the same database stepping
stone theory as others, Sybase Senior Group Marketing Manager Amit Satoor
said companies are struggling with the switch from free and open source
databases to enterprise-class databases.
"Most of the customers just want low-cost access
to software so they can start projects that they can deploy on a scalable
platform," Satoor said.
Sybase sought to strengthen its Linux database
recently with the
announcement that its ASE database would run on IBM's eServer OpenPower
server, a prominent Linux deployment based on the Power 5 processor.
Sleepycat: Feeling pressure from open
source
Berkeley DB open source database maker Sleepycat Software's Vice
President of Marketing Rex Wang said moves by Sybase, CA, and IBM were
the older players' reactions to inroads from the open source newcomers.
"There's no doubt that these proprietary database
vendors are being pressured to do this by the success of open source
vendors," Wang said, referring to a Sybase statement that the free Linux
ASE was intended to compete directly with the open source databases,
as well as DB2 and Oracle. "The fact that large, incumbent, proprietary
players have been motivated to make these moves indicates that the momentum
is real."
Wang said Sybase, for example, felt tremendous
price pressure and therefore made a restricted version of its product
free to the most price-sensitive segment of its market. "Their hope
is to get people to try it for free, then sell them the unrestricted
version as they scale their use," he said.
But not so fast, Wang indicated, as Berkeley DB's
developer focus and relative maturity -- in the market for eight years
-- mean it is already appropriate for mission-critical use.
Open source getting good enough
Yankee Group senior analyst Dana Gardner said
the use of a free Linux or open source database to introduce customers
to a wider range of products that scale up to enterprise is a legitimate
strategy. However, Gardner also said the databases that have been open
source since the start may benefit from an evolving, total open source
solution.
"What will be interesting is if the full stack
of open source components becomes some kind of de facto standard," Gardner
said. "In a best-of-breed open source approach, what are the databases
that are part of that de facto standard?"
Gardner added that while he does not see open
source databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL dethroning the dominant
Oracle and DB2 databases, the capabilities of the open source databases
are quickly catching up and are also sufficient for many higher-level
users.
"MySQL and PostreSQL -- those are quite full-featured,"
Gardner said. "If they continue that trajectory, good enough is good
enough for many people."
FutureSQL is a Rapid Application Development
web database administration tool written in Perl. FutureSQL allows one
to easily setup config files to view, edit, delete and otherwise process
records from a MySQL database. It uses a data dictionary, configuration
files and html templates, and allows "pre-processing" and "post-processing"
on both fields, records and operations. It allows multiple views and
operations on a data set, including the use of joined tables for queries
and reports.
A demo application with most of the features
is included.
By Robert Westervelt, News Writer
12 Aug 2004 | SearchDatabase.com |
Oracle, Microsoft and IBM will respond
to a flood of interest in open source databases by slashing prices and
ramping up automation features, according to "DBMS: Foundation of application
Infrastructure," a market report issued by Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester
Research Inc.
Proprietary database management system
(DBMS) vendors are beginning to feel the pinch from MySQL, Computer
Associates International Inc.'s Ingres and other open source DBMS vendors
that are attracting new customers with a low cost, no-frills systems.
"Right now we're seeing the impact of
open source databases in the entry-level database arena," said Noel
Yuhanna, a senior analyst at Forrester. "As open source vendors add
new features and functionality, the adoption rate [of open source databases]
will increase."
While more than 80% of enterprises continue
to focus on the top-tier DBMS products -- such as Microsoft SQL Server,
IBM DB2 and Oracle -- for mission-critical database applications, open
source products are accounting for more low-end, small scale deployments,
according to the Forrester report.
Most of the open source DBMS deployments
are for non-mission-critical applications, but Forrester predicts that
more than 20% of overall deployments will be mission-critical by 2006.
Forrester surveyed DBAs, chief information
officers and other IT personnel at 85 North American firms that use
or plan to use open source software. Of those, 52% said that they use
or plan to use MySQL DBMS. Those surveyed said they were lured by low
cost of support and maintenance, low acquisition costs and easier integration
with customized software.
"Open source is clearly making a dent
in database low-end deployments today," Yuhanna said. "I expect larger
scale deployments in the near future."
For now companies are downloading the
free open source versions, initially to test out the functionality in
their specific environment, Yuhanna said. Once enterprises get through
the initial stages of their testing models, most will make the switch
to the fully supported version.
"Enterprises that are serious about open
source will purchase the supported version," Yuhanna said.
MySQL is the leader in open source systems,
but CA announced plans in May to open up the source code to its Ingres
DBMS. In addition, CA said last week it would offer $1 million to encourage
development of an open source database migration toolkit.
"We're seeing very good comments about
Ingres in terms of performance, scalability and feature sets," Yuhanna
said. "It's definitely going to be an important open source database
and will compete on the deployment adoption rate with MySQL."
Meanwhile, IBM is also jumping on board,
announcing recently that it would contribute its Cloudscape Java database,
which it acquired from Informix, to the Apache Software Foundation.
The project is called "Derby," and amounts to more than 500,000 lines
of Java code.
While open source databases begin to
take more market share, Forrester said it is seeing increased interest
in mobile and XML databases. A Sybase subsidiary, iAnywhere Solutions
Inc. dominates the mobile space with more than 65% of the market.
XML-enabled databases supported by Oracle,
IBM, and Microsoft also continue to grow, according to Forrester. The
current market size is about $250 million and is likely to grow to $400
million by 2007, Forrester said.
By: Michael Dortch, Robert
Frances Group
The
LinuxWorld
Conference and Expo in San Francisco last week featured many interesting
announcements. However, the show was at least as noteworthy for its
implications as for its actual news announcements.
IBM Corp.'s announced
transformation of its Cloudscape database solution into an Open Source
offering follows closely the announcement of a similar transformation
for Computer Associates
International, Inc. (CA)'s Ingres database solution. Between Cloudscape
and Ingres, Open Source developers now have multiple new and powerful
options for building more "enterprise-class" solutions.
CA also announced actual availability of Ingres r3 as an Open Source
offering. The company also announced a million-dollar challenge/inducement
to developers who build tools that help users migrate to Ingres from
other proprietary and Open Source database solutions.
Other software vendors announced, discussed, and/or failed to deny or
dispute rumored plans to transform other proprietary solutions into
Open Source offerings. Clearly, the typing is on the display for many
of these vendors. They understand that they need to deliver Open Source
complements and alternatives to their proprietary solutions, or complements
and alternatives priced like Open Source offerings, to remain competitive.
No IT executive desirous of continued employment is going to be able
to justify paying proprietary-level prices for applications without
strongly compelling value propositions, when supporting operating environments
become increasingly cheap or free.
But no IT executive similarly incented is going to argue to "rip and
replace" all proprietary solutions with Open Source alternatives. The
enterprise software market, therefore, looks more and more like a striated,
multi-tiered arena, analogous in some ways to the current market for
broadcast content.
Today, there is "free" broadcast content subsidized rather speculatively
by advertising, the effectiveness of which is impossible to track perfectly.
There is partly subsidized content, paid for by combinations of grants
and subscriptions paid for by only a portion of all consumers. Finally,
there is completely subsidized content, for which consumers pay via
subscriptions or per use.
Soon, there are likely to be three similar tiers of the enterprise software
market. There will be free software, offered in the hopes that it will
generate follow-on demand for fee-based enhancements, services, and/or
support. There will be proprietary software, priced, sold, and supported
much as it is today. In addition, there will likely be a rapidly growing
middle tier of enterprise software solutions that are priced aggressively
and built atop free and inexpensive Open Source foundations, including
but not limited to Linux.
This likely means expanded choices for developers and enterprises alike.
However, environments made up of various combinations of solutions from
all three tiers will definitely require comprehensive, integrated management.
A key question is, therefore, from what vendors will such management
solutions come?
The ability of the leading traditional IT management vendors to answer
this question apparently varies widely. BMC Software, Inc., which won
a Best of Show award at LinuxWorld in 2003, announced no new solutions
or reaffirmations of its commitment to Linux support in San Francisco
last week. This is in marked contrast to CA,
Hewlett-Packard Co.
(HP), and IBM. CA, in addition to the announcements discussed above,
has repeatedly stated publicly that it is encouraging eventual development
of an entire Open Source IT management suite. Regarding HP and IBM,
there were no specific HP OpenView or IBM Tivoli announcements at LinuxWorld.
However, both HP and IBM were prominent at the show, and very willing
to discuss how their respective management arms are committed to making
Linux and Open Source solutions safe bets for the enterprise.
Veritas Software Corp.
, a vendor known primarily for storage management, reminded LinuxWorld
Expo attendees that it had been shipping Linux solutions since 1999.
The company also reinforced its new position as a provider of solutions
intended to enable utility computing. Veritas also announced offerings
intended to enable rapid migration between Linux and other environments,
and that it had joined the
Open Software Development
Labs, Inc.
Veritas is transforming and expanding its core mission by focusing specifically
on making enterprise IT architectures ready for Linux and Open Source
solutions. IT executives should expect to hear lots of other vendors
tout similar strategies - and be prepared to carefully separate promise
from reality.
RFG believes IT management solution vendors must quickly and firmly
declare and demonstrate willingness and ability to help IT executives
build and operate infrastructures that embrace Linux and Open Source.
Furthermore, IT executives should work with their most trusted vendors
to ensure that architectures at those executives' enterprises become
and remain sufficiently flexible and elastic to support promising new
Open Source solutions as they appear. Such architectures will enable
IT executives to incorporate such solutions as they demonstrate the
ability to lower costs and deliver other business benefits, without
disrupting operations or enterprise elasticity.
Meanwhile, IT executives should ensure that their leading incumbent
management vendors have strategies and offerings adequate to address
growing enterprise Linux and Open Source support requirements - or begin
considering alternative solutions and vendors.
=====
Michael Dortch is a principal business analyst and the IT infrastructure
management practice leader at Robert Frances Group (RFG). RFG provides
business-centric, timely advice, consulting, and research about the
IT marketplace to Global 2000 IT executives, their teams, and their
senior executive colleagues. More information is available online at
http://www.rfgonline.com
Open-source databases took
a giant step toward the mainstream last month when Hewlett-Packard
began supporting MySQL and certifying it to run on HP servers--the
first major system vendor to do so.
HP's move adds to the growing evidence
that open-source databases--primarily MySQL--are becoming a viable
alternative to commercial databases from IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.
"It's no longer the lunatic fringe," says Gartner analyst Kevin
Strange, who has seen a surge of interest in MySQL in the last six
to eight months.
Like the open-source Linux operating
system and Apache Web server, open-source databases are freely available
on the Web, and developers can download the source code and modify
it any way they like. But companies also can pay vendors such as
MySQL AB and PostgreSQL Inc. for support and other services in the
same way they can purchase Linux software and support from Red Hat
Inc.
Why the sudden interest in open-source
databases? Cost is the main reason. Companies are undertaking new
IT projects as the economy improves, but budgets remain tight and
IT managers are increasingly open to low-cost alternatives to high-priced
database software. MySQL implementation costs can be as little as
10% or 20% the cost of a commercial database, says Mike Gaydos,
the lead architect of MySQL solutions at IT services firm EDS.
Business-technology executives now
have a higher comfort level with open-source software overall. As
Linux, Apache, and the JBoss open-source application server gain
acceptance, IT execs who just a year ago might have balked at the
idea of using an open-source database are taking a second look.
Open-source databases lack some of
the sophisticated capabilities offered by commercial databases,
but they're widely perceived as capable of handling routine and
even critical computing tasks. AMR Research, in a report predicting
open-source databases will be widely adopted by 2006, found that
43% of companies using open-source databases say they can handle
mission-critical jobs today, while 37% expect them to be ready for
such tasks within 24 months.
Increased use of MySQL and
other open-source databases, in fact, represents something of a
revolt among IT buyers against IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, which
continue to fill their database products with new features and technology
that many business users aren't ready to use. Oracle, for
example, built grid-computing capabilities into its 10g database,
even though many customers are a long way from building grid systems.
The government of Pottawattamie County,
Iowa, is swapping out its Windows server software for Linux. It
uses MySQL for several database applications and plans to convert
others to MySQL from Microsoft's SQL Server database. Aside from
the cost advantage MySQL has over SQL Server, county IT director
Thomas Broniecki claims MySQL is more secure than Microsoft's database.
Few companies, however, are ripping
out their Oracle, Microsoft, or IBM DB2 databases in favor of open-source
databases. Commercial databases are too entrenched within IT networks,
and businesses have too much invested in applications--either developed
in-house or packaged apps from PeopleSoft, SAP, and others--that
run on those databases.
Open-source databases move in most
often for new, custom-built applications, particularly within small
and midsize companies, educational institutions, and government
organizations.
"Pretty much every part of the business
runs on MySQL," says Corey Ostman, technology VP at PriceGrabber.com
LLC, an online comparison-shopping Web site. The database serves
up content to the Web site, which gets thousands of hits every second
during peak times, and tallies up the clickstream data used to calculate
fees paid by retailers to PriceGrabber.
PriceGrabber chose MySQL when the
company was started in 1999 because the database was easy to manage,
Ostman says. He had worked with Oracle's database and says it needed
constant attention and tuning. And while cost wasn't a major factor
in the initial decision to use MySQL, Ostman says it doesn't hurt
that its maintenance and support from MySQL AB costs "thousands
of dollars per year rather than [the] hundreds of thousands of dollars
per year" a commercial database would cost.
MySQ
(Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.feratech.com/about/bios/ahochber/)