Re: strange postgresql x mysql comparison in forrester analyse

Greg Smith wrote:
> I hate to break it to you, but by the criteria listed for what's an
> "enterprise" database:
> "support for application development, high availability, disaster
> recovery, security, high performance, a wide range of data types, and
> backup and recovery. ...
> PostgreSQL *is* weak.

The analyst is making an argument like "Linux is weaker than Windows
because it has no graphical user interface in the kernel" - and
we're falling for it.

> And consider each of them:
>
> Performance: ...Do not be confused
> because PG works great on *most* database tasks, there are plenty it's
> miserable at ...

Would have been nice if they had pointed to the benchmark they
had in mind. The only well known published benchmark I
see (on spec.org) that compares postgres to many of these other
databases made us look OK to me.

> Scalability: No integrated support for any sort of replication,
> clustering, or connection pooling? You've just failed as far as this
> part of the market is concerned.

Postgres has this - in exactly the same way that Linux has a GUI.

> Administration: I like powerful command line tools even if they're
> cryptic. The market this report is written to does not.

And in the same way, Linux administration tools are nonexistant
in the kernel either.

Which makes it a good thing that postgres has pgadmin and webmin.

> Application development: the tools people PostgreSQL apps with are
> great if you're got a UNIX-ish background. They look pretty primitive
> to those who don't get that though. Would you bet your business that
> the PostgreSQL .Net driver is high quality?

I'd bet it's on par with freetds / unixodbc and other tools to get
linux apps to work with sqlserver.

> Support for disparate data types: no idea what that's supposed to mean,
> here I think the analyst may have missed the power of the Postgres type
> system.

I totally agree we fall short here - for example most commercial
database vendors offer GIS data types.

Fortunately if we consider postgres as a platform, we have one
available from a third party.

> VLDBs: At the point this was written, there wasn't even any clear
> in-place upgrade path for PostgreSQL database. Instant thumbs-down from
> most large database prospects. There's plenty of other missing features
> here too; Simon made a nice list at

For VLDB work, I agree F/OSS postgres doesn't really stand up, and
you need proprietary add-ons/forks. However I note that many of the
larges databases in the world (Yahoo's Ebay's, etc) are indeed postgres
with extensions.

If the analysts report excludes any proprietary, I agree that
postgres as well as any other vendors who need proprietary
code should score low here.

OTOH, if the analyst's report permits proprietary code, it seems
postgres should score on top here.

> Again, these items are probably not your priorities or you wouldn't be
> using PostgreSQL, but I think the analyst is right that they're often
> those of the customers they're aiming the report at.

I think the problem is that we're comparing an apples (just the core
postgres kernel) with oranges (the database kernels plus all the
supporting tools and apps from other vendors).

If you look at postgres as a broader platform, we do very well,
especially if you include non-BSD (both gpl and proprietary)
licensed extensions.