PostgreSQL 9.4 Beta 1 Released

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announced that the first beta
release of PostgreSQL 9.4, the latest version of the world's leading
open source database, is available today. This beta contains previews
of all of the features which will be available in version 9.4, and is
ready for testing by the worldwide PostgreSQL community. Please
download, test, and report what you find.

Major Features
--------------

The new major features available for testing in this beta include:

* JSONB: 9.4 includes the new JSONB "binary JSON" type. This new
storage format for document data is higher-performance, and comes with
indexing, functions and operators for manipulating JSON data.
* Replication: The new Data Change Streaming API allows decoding and
transformation of the replication stream. This lays the foundation
for new replication tools that support high-speed and more flexible
replication and scale-out solutions.
* Materialized Views with "Refresh Concurrently", which permit
fast-response background summary reports for complex data.
* ALTER SYSTEM SET, which enables modifications to postgresql.conf
from the SQL command line and from remote clients, easing
administration tasks.

These features expand the capabilities of PostgreSQL, and introduce
new syntax, APIs, and management interfaces.

Additional Features
-------------------

There are many other features in the 9.4 beta, all of which need testing by you:

* Dynamic Background Workers
* Replication Slots
* Write Scalability improvements
* Aggregate performance improvements
* Reductions in WAL volume
* GIN indexes up to 50% smaller and faster
* Updatable security barrier views
* New array manipulation and table functions
* Time-delayed standbys
* MVCC system catalog updates
* Decrease lock level for some ALTER TABLE commands
* Backup throttling
* WITHIN GROUP

There have also been many internal changes in the inner workings of
the Write Ahead Log (WAL), GIN indexes, replication, aggregation, and
management of the system catalogs. The means we need you to help us
find any new bugs that we may have introduced in these areas *before*
the full release of 9.4.

For a full listing of the features in version 9.4 Beta, please see the
release notes: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/static/release-9-4.html
Additional descriptions and notes on the new features are available
on the 9.4 Features Wiki Page:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What%27s_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.4

Test 9.4 Beta 1 Now
-------------------

We depend on our community to help test the next version in order to
guarantee that it is high-performance and bug-free. Please download
PostgreSQL 9.4 Beta 1 and try it with your workloads and applications
as soon as you can, and give feedback to the PostgreSQL developers.
Features and APIs in Beta 1 will not change substantially before final
release, so it is now safe to start building applications against the
new features. More information on how to test and report issues:
http://www.postgresql.org/developer/beta

Get the PostgreSQL 9.4 Beta 1, including binaries and installers for
Windows, Linux and Mac from our download page:
http://www.postgresql.org/download

Full documentation of the new version is available online:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/static, and also installs with
PostgreSQL.

--
Dave Page
PostgreSQL Core Team
http://www.postgresql.org/