EnterpriseDB tries PostgreSQL-based Oracle plug-compatibility
Like Greenplum, EnterpriseDB is a PostgreSQL-based DBMS vendor with an interesting story, whose technical merits I don’t yet know enough to judge. In particular, CEO Andy Astor:
- Confirms that EnterpriseDB is OLTP-focused, unlike Greenplum. That said, they are also used for some reporting and so on. But they don’t run 10s-of-terabytes sized data marts.
- Claims EnterpriseDB has a high level of Oracle compatibility – SQL, datatypes, stored procedures (so that would be PL/SQL too), packages, functions, etc.
- Claims ANTs isn’t nearly as Oracle-compatible.
- Claims 50-100% better OLTP performance out of the box than vanilla PostgreSQL, due to auto-tuning.
Also, EnterpriseDB has added a bunch of tools to PostgreSQL – debugging, DBA, etc. And it provides actual-company customer support, something that seems desirable when using a DBMS. It should also be noted that the product is definitely closed-source, notwithstanding EnterpriseDB’s open-source-like business model and its close ties to the open source community.
Basic stats Andy offers include: EnterpriseDB just started selling in January, 2006. They now have 75 customers, single millions of dollars in sales, 140 people worldwide in six countries.
A lot of these customers are ISVs, looking for a cheaper alternative to bundling Oracle. This echoes Ingres’ story; such new-name business as Ingres has seems to come mainly from ISVs these days. And a few customers are just pure PostgreSQL users, who don’t care about Oracle compatibility but want support.
As for the enterprise customers, Andy cites a variety of replacements of other DBMS, but concedes that many sales are for new and/or proof-of-concept applications. It should also be noted that enterprise customers typically pay on a subscription basis, which obviously depresses current revenue (but does make EnterpriseDB pretty comparable to the substantially lager MySQL, apples-to-apples).
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