February 1st, 2010 by Jim Mlodgenski
One of the promises of Cloud Computing is the ease of spinning up new instances and adding them to an existing application allowing for elasticity, but actually doing that in practice is anything but simple. Increasing the complexity would be adding another dimension of wanting to accomplish this across multiple cloud vendors. This is important for some SAAS vendors that want redundancy or just for organizations wanting to avoid vendor lock-in. An open source project by Red Hat called DeltaCloud shows the promise of on day allowing this, but the functionality of actually configuring a running instance is not addressed. RightScale has a number of Ruby Gems that addresses the same problem as DeltaCloud, but again, it falls short on configuring a running instance. These two projects will probably progress together since DeltaCloud actually uses the RightScale Gems under the covers. A project that handles configuring running instances well is Cloud Tools which powers Cloud Foundry for SpringSource. Cloud Tools provides a simple way to configure running instances in complex deployments which even includes setting up replication between 2 database servers. The downside is that it only works for Amazon’s EC2. Since all of the projects are open, jamming them together could be a powerful combination and may be necessary as cloud deployments become more complex across providers.
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Tags: cloud, open source
Posted in Open Source Tools | 3 Comments »
January 19th, 2010 by Jim Mlodgenski
The recent Streaming Replication patch committed to the PostgreSQL source tree is the potential killer feature that can catapult PostgreSQL into a prominent position in the cloud computing landscape. This combined with Hot Standby fills a major void in PostgreSQL by providing a replication solution native to the core engine and allows for a horizontally scalable solution without any bolt ons. This is a key piece of functionality to leverage the elasticity promise of compute clouds. While it has always been possible to use replication with PostgreSQL, integrating this into the core will allow new PostgreSQL users to easily use replication without feeling overwhelmed by learning Slonik scripts. What is most exciting about this is the timing of when this is all happening. With the uncertainty of the future of MySQL, there are more people than ever looking at PostgreSQL and one of the biggest historical knocks on PostgreSQL is the lack of an integrated replication solution. This is huge as this new audience starts to look at PostgreSQL and realize that PostgreSQL can more than fit their needs as an open source database instead of MySQL.
Tags: cloud, mysql, postgres, postgresql, replication
Posted in mysql, postgresql | 10 Comments »
January 11th, 2010 by Jim Mlodgenski
Cloud Computing is the new big wave in the Information technology industry, but it is an amorphous term that is commonly misunderstood. I talk to people everyday who are confused by the Cloud, but Cloud Computing is simply a shared computing resource and has actually been part of the IT landscape for many years. The Cloud Computing ecosystem can be split into three categories, Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). SaaS can be considered the first major breakthrough in what is considered Cloud Computing today with services such as Salesforce.com and email hosting like Gmail and Hotmail. PaaS evolved out of the success of successful SaaS offering and spawned platforms allowing users to enhance SaaS offerings with platforms like the Google App Engine and Force.com. The latest category of Cloud Computing of IaaS is driving the excitement. This includes Storage Clouds and most importantly Compute Clouds. Compute Clouds are shared environments providing virtualized Operating Systems allowing users a platform to deploy applications with greater control over the resources and the ability to deploy the applications of their choice. These Compute Clouds are where PostgreSQL can be used to back any sort of application you would run inside a traditional data center. These different types of Clouds and the use of the common Cloud Computing terminology among them leads to the confusion of what Cloud Computing really is and ultimately leads to the common question I hear “Does PostgreSQL run in the Cloud?”…Of course it does…
Tags: cloud, postgres, postgresql
Posted in Uncategorized, postgresql | 9 Comments »
December 16th, 2009 by Bruce Momjian
A year ago I wrote a tongue-in-cheek blog entry about the MySQL “soap opera”. I never anticipated the soap opera would take on the international importance it has today, with the European Union (EU) questioning the purchase of Sun Microsystems by Oracle.
There have already been two excellent Postgres blog posts about this issue (1. 2), so I just want to make three observations:
- I never thought Oracle cared enough about MySQL to delay the merger, e.g. MySQL was not mentioned in the merger announcement, and MySQL makes up a small portion of Sun’s revenue. I am guessing either MySQL is more important than Oracle revealed, or Oracle is resisting the EU objections out of principle or stubbornness. (Perhaps there is some advantage to Oracle in delaying the merger.)
- Oracle users rarely migrate to MySQL, so I don’t understand the anti-competitive objection to the merger. Even then-CEO Marten Mickos said in 2003 that MySQL complements and does not compete against Oracle, so it is hard to understand why the EU is objecting to the purchase on monopolistic grounds. As much as MySQL tried to position itself by adding enterprise features, the effort was incomplete, and based on the limited number of people who port applications from Oracle to MySQL, probably not very successful.Of course, Postgres works well for both MySQL and Oracle workloads based on the number of people who port applications every day, and Postgres will remain a viable open source database alternative no matter what happens to MySQL.
- There is an argument that dual-licensing is required to create successful open source software companies. Of course Red Hat, other GPL-only software companies, and Postgres companies are doing just fine, so it is hard to see how this argument makes sense. It might be a requirement if you expect to pay all the MySQL developers, which is the way MySQL has always operated in the past. Postgres and most open source projects rely much more on volunteers and on multiple companies supporting developers who work in a cooperative fashion; MySQL was an aberration in this area.Interestingly, some MySQL users are suggesting a compromise of changing MySQL to use the Apache/BSD license, like Postgres’s, which certainly is easier for companies, but not a requirement. There is a few thoughtful articles (1, 2, 3) about the licensing issue.
I think the big concern Postgres people have is that many of the things being said about this merger are either wrong or MySQL-specific and portray open source, and open source databases specifically, in an inaccurate way.
Tags: european union, mysql, oracle, postgresql, sun microsystems
Posted in Open Source Trends/News | No Comments »
December 10th, 2009 by Ed Boyajian
There are some interesting statistics in the survey from Matt Aslett of the 451 Group (451 Group survey highlights user concerns over Oracle’s proposed ownership of MySQL).
One of the stats that stands out in the write up is:
“PostgreSQL usage is also expected to grow, from 27.1% of all users today to 30.5% in 2011″
This statistic in particular prompted a flurry of calls from partners and customers over the past few days excited about the relative penetration of Postgres indicated in this survey.
For those who follow Postgres carefully, this is not big news. The community has been thriving for a long time. In fact, the community version of PostgreSQL has long been generating millions of annual downloads (from PostgreSQL.org) and that doesn’t count how many other MILLIONS of user receive Postgres via its inclusion in every major Linux distributions like RHEL, SLES, Fedora and Open SuSE.
Regarding the projected growth of Postgres, I think the Oracle acquisition of MySQL is a small reason for it. We have a unique view on this through our work with the community and our customers (we get a front row seat), and here are some important drivers why Postgres is on the rise independent of MySQL’s uncertain future:
- Technical improvements in recent releases. Developers, architects and DBAs are getting more out of Postgres now. It was only in 2005 that Postgres began supporting the win32 port, a major step forward for developers who work in a Windows environment. This was a major door opener for Postgres. In fact, some of the most important features for broad-based adoption are much more recent than most are aware, given the 20-year history of Postgres.
- Enterprise architects and corporate developers writing more complex server-centric (Java) applications with increasing need to specify lower cost, open technologies. This class of application and developer is different than the recent trend to getting quick apps done with lightweight scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Python) where MySQL has always been strong. Java applications are different and still the dominant force in server-centric enterprise application development. They also require a higher order database like Postgres. The de-facto standard here has long been Oracle, but cost pressures are changing this quickly. Postgres is enjoying a strong and growing relevance to Java developers. The 2009 Eclipse Developer Survey points this out with even more clarity.
- Newer versions of Postgres are just “hitting the shelves” in production in notable deployments. Given 2-year development cycles for some key projects, the more recent technical and feature enhancements in Postgres are just starting to emerge from notable users. One of our customers, Sony Online Entertainment is a great example of this. After two-years in development, one of SOE’s newest MMORPGs, (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) Free Realms, just went live and it is powered entirely by Postgres (in this case it is EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus Advanced Server). This is a heavy-duty, graphic-intensive application handling over 5 million registered users and built around “micro-transactions.”
The fact that 27.1% of the 451 Group’s surveyed database users currently use Postgres looks bigger than expected highlights how under-represented basic Postgres facts and figures are in the press and media. This is actually a testament to the independence of the Postgres community, which appropriately is more focused on technology than PR.
It is worth repeating that the growth of Postgres isn’t tied to the uncertainty of MySQL. The open source database market isn’t a single unified market. The two leading open source databases, Postgres and MySQL, are very different types of databases addressing different workloads and needs. The growth of Postgres signals increasing acceptance of an open source RDBMS in the enterprise for applications that were typically built to run on products like Oracle, DB2, Sybase – a segment of the database market MySQL was never designed to support.
Tags: mysql, open source database, oracle, postgres, postgresql, the 451 group
Posted in Open Source Trends/News, postgresql | 16 Comments »
December 4th, 2009 by Jim Mlodgenski
This summer had some high profile hacks using SQL Injection attacks, but apparently this has not spurred a focus on locking down those holes in other websites. Last month, hackers where able to cause power outages in Brazil by using a SQL Injection attack. And just this week, the Wall St Journal was hacked.
These attacks will lead to more technological innovation in the ever growing security arms race. Just yesterday, GreenSQL released a new version of their database firewall that supports PostgreSQL. While database firewall technology is an effective tool in preventing SQL Injection attacks, it may not be a viable option in many situations. Many application rely heavily on the performance and scalability of the database engine and adding a layer of complex processing between the application and database has its drawbacks. The innovation still needs to progress before SQL Injection attacks become a lot less common place in the wild world of the internet.
Posted in Open Source Tools, Security, postgresql | No Comments »
