Re: Postgres as the embedded database

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Mike Gould <mgould(at)allcoast(dot)net> wrote:
> I am looking to hear from people that are using PostGres as their backend in
> a commerically available product and how much work would be needed to ensure
> that our configurations are optimized for each platform along with normal
> database routines? What has the stability factor been once installed if the
> user has no administrative / superuser access to the database? In our
> application, we never allow for deletes to happen, the records get marked as
> "deleted", but until a archival process is run (normally every 2-3 years)
> the records cannot be removed.
>
> We have used SQL Anywhere in the past and while I know that the PostGreSQL
> installation will be more complex than what we currently have, there are
> many aspects of the actual database that have made us look at it as a
> replacement to SQL Anywhere in our new product line.
>
> I can say that with SQL Anywhere it is pretty much install and forget it.
> I'd like to have it pretty much the same with PostGreSQL. With SQL Anywhere
> we use their internal event processor to manage the database when it is
> needed. We fully expect that we will need to write our own external event
> processor to manage some of the database maintenance processes so that isn't
> really a issue.
>
> We will have several hundred installations and what I don't want to do is
> significantly increase our maintenance costs with PostGreSQL to gain some of
> the functionality that it has (partitioned tables being one).

it can work -- autovacuum makes things a lot easier particularly if
the database isn't *too* busy.

your main areas of concern should be:
*) user account problems on windows (win32 changing password of
postgres account for example)
*) upgrades
*) security

for various reasons, it will be impossible to hide that you are using
postgresql. not that that's a bad thing, but you have to understand
that.

merlin