Re: COLUMNAR postgreSQL ?

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Juan Bru <juan_bru(at)yahoo(dot)es> wrote:

> Is there any plan to develop a PostgreSQL Columnar release?
>
> I’m a researcher in the scope of Health (computer scientist, DBA
> background), used to work very well with PostgrSQL. Recently I’m facing
> analysis on 100M record tables so a columnar database could be a better
> option, but I would like to stay using postgreSQL.

It would be useful to get some balanced viewpoints on this. I see you
have Alterian experience, so if you are using both it could be
valuable info. I've never heard anyone describe the downsides of
columnar datastores, presumably there are some?

My understanding is that columnar will work well for queries like this

SELECT count(*)
FROM table
WHERE col1 AND col2 AND col3

but less well when we include the columns in the SELECT clause.

Would you be able to give some viewpoints and measurements on that?

Do you think some funding could be available for that?

--
 Simon Riggs                   http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
 PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services