May 8th, 2008 Curt Monash
In which we bring you another instantiation of Monash’s First Law of Commercial Semantics: Bad jargon drives out good.
When Enterprise DB announced a partnership with Truviso for a “blade,” I naturally assumed they were using the term in a more-or-less standard way, and hence believed that it was more than a “Barney” press release.* Silly me. Rather than referring to something closely akin to “datablade,” EnterpriseDB’s “blade” program turns out to just to be a catchall set of partnerships.
*A “Barney” announcement is one whose entire content boils down to “I love you; you love me.”
According to EnterpriseDB CTO Bob Zurek, the main features of the “blade” program include:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Data types, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Open source RDBMS, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility, PostgreSQL, Relational database management systems, Specialized data management in general | 3 Comments »
April 29th, 2008 Curt Monash
Truviso and EnterpriseDB announced today that there’s a Truviso “blade” for Postgres Plus. By email, EnterpriseDB Bob Zurek endorsed my tentative summary of what this means technically, namely:
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There’s data being managed transactionally by EnterpriseDB.
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Truviso’s DML has all along included ways to talk to a persistent Postgres data store.
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If, in addition, one wants to do stream processing things on the same data, that’s now possible, using Truviso’s usual DML.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Analytics and analytic technologies, Business intelligence, Complex event/stream processing (CEP), Data types, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Games and virtual worlds, Memory-centric data management, Open source RDBMS, PostgreSQL, Specialized data management in general, Truviso | 1 Comment »
April 10th, 2008 Curt Monash
As previously announced, I did a webcast this afternoon, discussing database diversity. The title of the talk was taken directly from a post – What leading DBMS vendors don’t want you to realize — that argued mid-range DBMS are suitable for a broad variety of tasks. The overriding theme was a Clayton Christensen-style “disruption” narrative.
The sponsor was EnterpriseDB, which is fitting. While not the biggest DBMS industry disrupter in terms of revenue or visible impact (MySQL and Netezza say “Hi”), the Postgres family in general and EnterpriseDB in particular epitomize the disruption threat like nobody else, because of how broadly they substitute for market-leading database managers.
As I promised on the call, below is a post with links to further research backing up the points made. They’re numbered to match some of the presentation slides, which you can find at this link.
3. Much of the discussion of database diversity comes from a series of posts I coordinated with Mike Stonebraker.
4. At various times, starting on Slide 4, I made reference to datatype extensibility, a key feature of Oracle and DB2 – and a key advantage of Postgres over MySQL.
10. Capping off the database diversity discussion, Slide 10 mirrors this 11-point version of a data management software taxonomy.
13-14. I’ve posted many times about data warehousing DBMS and related technologies, including this overview of major analytic DBMS products, another recent overview of data warehouse specialty technologies, and an attempt to distinguish between data warehouse appliance myths and realities. Of particular interest for further research may be our sections on data warehouse appliances and columnar DBMS.
15. I do most of my posting about text search over on Text Technologies, specifically in the search category. Vendors I specifically mentioned as blending search with other kinds of data retrieval were Mark Logic and Attivio.
16. There’s a section here on native XML database management.
17. We also have a section on managing RDF and other graphical data models.
18. Ditto complex event/stream processing.
19. The only embeddable DBMS I’ve written much about recently is solidDB. And frankly, even in that case I’ve focused more on mid-tier caching uses, the now-canceled MySQL relationship, or general technology than I did specifically on embedded uses.
22-24. Back in February, 2007 I made what is probably still my clearest post explaining why I think market-leading DBMS vendors are in the process of getting disrupted.
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Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, MySQL, Open source RDBMS, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
April 2nd, 2008 Curt Monash
Once or twice a year, EnterpriseDB sponsors a webcast for me. The last two were super well-attended. And most people stayed to the end, which is generally an encouraging sign!
The emphasis this time is on alternatives to the market-leading DBMS. I’ll highlight the advantages of both data warehousing specialists and general-purpose mid-range DBMS (naturally focusing on the latter, given who the sponsor is). The provocative title is taken from a January, 2008 post — What leading DBMS vendors don’t want you to realize. If you read every word of this blog, there probably won’t be much new for you. 
But I’d love to have you listen in and perhaps ask a question anyway!
You can register on EnterpriseDB’s webcast page, which also has an archived webcast I did for them in October, 2007.
Posted in Database diversity, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS | No Comments »
March 25th, 2008 Curt Monash
While talking with EnterpriseDB about today’s Postgres Plus announcements, I took the chance to clear up a point of confusion. Somebody told Seth Grimes that EnterpriseDB is out to compete with Greenplum, but that person was wrong. EnterpriseDB fondly hopes to manage multi-terabyte data warehouses, just as Oracle and Microsoft do with their respective general-purpose DBMS. However, EnterpriseDB is not going after the 10s-100s of terabytes sized DBMS that are the province of specialists such as Greenplum, Teradata, Netezza, or columnar DBMS vendors.
Even so, in GridSQL EnterpriseDB does seem to be open-sourcing MPP shared-nothing basics. There’s a lightweight optimizer that does a little (but only a little) more to minimize data movement beyond just optimizing queries on each node. And GridSQL knows how to replicate small tables across each node, a key aspect of many MPP designs. (Partition your facts; replicate your dimensions.)
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Technorati Tags: GridSQL
Posted in Analytics and analytic technologies, Data warehousing, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Greenplum, Open source RDBMS, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
March 25th, 2008 Curt Monash
EnterpriseDB is making a series of moves and announcements. Highlights include:
- Renaming/repositioning the product as “Postgres Plus.” The free product is now Postgres Plus, while the version you pay EnterpriseDB for is now Postgres Plus Advanced Server.
- Repackaging the products, so that Postgres Plus Advanced Server is a strict superset of Postgres Plus.
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New features added to Postgres Plus Advanced Server.
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Features newly migrated from Advanced Server down to Postgres Plus.
- A strategic investment by IBM.
- Stressing Postgres in EnterpriseDB marketing, and dropping the tag-line defining themselves as “the Oracle-compatible database company.”
So far as I can tell, most of the technical differences between Advanced Server and regular Postgres Plus lie in three areas: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Cache, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, MySQL, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility, PostgreSQL, Relational database management systems | 1 Comment »
March 6th, 2008 Curt Monash
The relational DBMS industry is filled with startups. In some way or other, most of them are based on or make use of the open source project PostgreSQL. (Not all, of course; exceptions include DATAllegro and Infobright, which are based on Ingres and MySQL respectively.) But how they use PostgreSQL varies greatly. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Greenplum, Open source RDBMS, PostgreSQL, Relational database management systems, Vertica Systems | 9 Comments »
March 6th, 2008 Curt Monash
I previously wrote that EnterpriseDB-on-Elastra has very little enterprise traction, drawing most of its interest instead from online businesses or ISVs. Having used that as a starting point in a recent chat with EnterpriseDB marketing chief Derek Rodner, I can now add that overall:
- EnterpriseDB reports good traction with ISVs. In particular, those that resell Oracle would like a cheaper alternative. Sometimes, they can port their code with no rewriting at all.
- Online businesses of various kinds also are a significant fraction of the customer base.
- EnterpriseDB has some true large-enterprise customers — Derek rattled off some household names — but this isn’t yet the heart of its business.
- EnterpriseDB has an increasing business teleselling to SMBs.
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Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
February 14th, 2008 Curt Monash
I finally caught up with Bob Zurek about EnterpriseDB’s foray into the Elastra cloud. Here are some highlights:
- There have been dozens of applicants for the EnterpriseDB/Elastra beta program. As is usual in limited beta programs, EnterpriseDB is trying to sort out the ones who’ll make a big commitment from the tire-kickers.
- The main interest in EnterpriseDB/Elastra has come from ISVs, and secondarily from purely online businesses (e.g., SaaS vendors, web businesses, and a large MMO game vendors). There’s been a little interest from enterprises.
- Significant fractions of the EnterpriseDB/Elastra beta applications come from each of the Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL user communities. A few come from SQL Server. None come from DB2.
- Bob praised Elastra for its technology in clustering, starting/stopping instances, etc. He also said that EnterpriseDB had “educated” Elastra on EnterpriseDB internals and/or admin tools, to make the integration work.
- EnterpriseDB will start turning on a few beta Elastra customers any day now (i.e., it may well not take until March, the original target).
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Posted in Cloud computing, Elastra, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
February 5th, 2008 Curt Monash
The Register reports on PostgreSQL 8.3, and emphasizes OLTP speedups and reductions in administrative burden:
Among the changes, Heap Only Tuples (HOT) that may cut the maintenance overhead of frequently updated tables by up to 75 per cent, spread checkpoints and background writer autotuning to reduce the impact of check points on response times, and an asynchronous commit option that also speeds the response times of certain transactions.
I wonder how EnterpriseDB compares on these features.
Edit: Slashdot has discussion and links. And here’s a PostgreSQL feature matrix.
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, PostgreSQL | 1 Comment »
January 30th, 2008 Curt Monash
When Elastra announced their service to host MySQL and PostgreSQL in the Amazon S3/EC2 cloud, I immediately told my dear darling clients at EnterpriseDB they should do the same. Whereupon they told me it would happen soon. However, they neglected to tell me when it was actually announced. So I know no more than can be found in this Computerworld article.
But I’ll say this — it’s a very tempting option, both for new web-based applications or businesses, or simply as a development platform pending later redeployment.
Posted in Amazon, SimpleDB, and S3, Cloud computing, Elastra, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, Relational database management systems, SaaS | 1 Comment »
January 28th, 2008 Curt Monash
And here’s the biggie.
Question of the day #3
What complex, high-volume transactional applications have actually been built in mid-range DBMS such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, FileMaker, or EnterpriseDB?
I’ve been flamed for suggesting that MySQL or FileMaker aren’t fully equal to Oracle and DB2 in supporting hard-core transactional applications. (Which is ironic, because I’ve also been flamed for suggesting hard-core transactional support isn’t as big a deal for DBMS selection as some relational purists insist. But I digress …) So I’m putting the question out there — what impressive transactional applications do the stand-alone mid-range DBMS actually support? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, FileMaker, Mid-range DBMS, MySQL, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, PostgreSQL, Relational database management systems | 20 Comments »
January 22nd, 2008 Curt Monash
For very high-end applications, the list of viable database management systems is short. Scalability can be a problem. (The rankings of most scalable alternatives differ in the OLTP and data warehouse realms.) Extreme levels of security can be had from only a few DBMS. (Oracle would have you believe there’s only one choice.) And if you truly need 99.99% uptime, there only are a few DBMS you even should consider.
But for most applications at any enterprise – and for all applications at most enterprises – super high-end DBMS aren’t required. There are relatively few applications that wouldn’t run perfectly well on PostgreSQL or EnterpriseDB today. Ingres and Progress OpenEdge aren’t far behind (they’re a little lacking in datatype support). Ditto Intersystems Cache’, although the nonrelational architecture will be off-putting to many. And to varying degrees, you can also do fine with MySQL, Pervasive PSQL, MaxDB, or a variety of other products – or for that matter with the cheap or free crippled versions of Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, and Informix.
What’s more, these mid-range database management systems can have significant advantages over their high-end brethren. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, IBM and DB2, Ingres, Intersystems and Cache', Microsoft and SQL*Server, Mid-range DBMS, MySQL, Open source RDBMS, Oracle, Pervasive Software, PostgreSQL, Progress, Apama, and DataDirect, Relational database management systems, SAP, BI Accelerator, and MaxDB | 14 Comments »
January 10th, 2008 Curt Monash
If you’re interested in the world of mid-range, OLTP, and/or open source database management systems, Derek Rodner’s blog is worth checking out. His 2007 Year in Review post deserves a look — even though it’s about as unbiased and spin-free as Bill O’Reilly’s TV show, in that combines multiple shots each at Oracle and MySQL with some plugs for EnterpriseDB. I’ve already praised his post a month ago listing large numbers of EnterpriseDB successes. Of course there are multiple heartfelt arguments on behalf of Postgres (too many to link to specifically). And he even has a great set of tips — which I hereby recommend to all my vendor clients — on how best to use Google AdWords.
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Open source RDBMS, PostgreSQL | 1 Comment »
December 5th, 2007 Curt Monash
Quite a bit of DBMS plug-compatibility is being claimed these days. Lewis Cunningham’s post on a few new EnterpriseDB features illustrates just how picky compatibility features can get. One can run Oracle code but not get around to handling comments properly? Sheesh.
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Oracle, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
December 5th, 2007 Curt Monash
I’m going to praise EnterpriseDB’s marketing communications twice in two blog posts, because I really liked some of the crunch they put into a press release announcing a MySQL replacement at FortiusOne. To wit (emphasis mine):
The PostGIS geospatial extensions to PostgreSQL played a key role in FortiusOne’s selection of EnterpriseDB Advanced Server, a PostgreSQL-based solution, and dramatically improved performance. FortiusOne needed to run complex spatial queries against large datasets quickly and efficiently, and found the MySQL spatial extensions to be far less complete and comprehensive than PostGIS. EnterpriseDB Advanced Server processes some of GeoCommons’ database-intensive rendering requests in one-thirtieth of the time required by MySQL. During peak loads, GeoCommons processes more than one hundred thousand complex requests per hour, requiring true enterprise-class performance and scalability.
Another major factor in FortiusOne’s replacement of MySQL with EnterpriseDB Advanced Server was the company’s need for advanced partitioning, custom triggers, and functional indexing. EnterpriseDB’s advanced partitioning capabilities instantly enabled linear performance, even with tables having billions of rows.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Data types, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, GIS and geospatial, MySQL | 10 Comments »
December 5th, 2007 Curt Monash
Ashlee Vance discovered that EnterpriseDB had shot its field sales force, and opined that EnterpriseDB might generally be in trouble. EnterpriseDB CEO Andy Astor and marketing exec Derek Rodner responded quickly in their respective blogs. Andy and I also talked on the phone.
As best as I can tell, here’s what’s actually going on: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Open source RDBMS, Relational database management systems | 2 Comments »
October 23rd, 2007 Curt Monash
… or else I’m one heck of a webinar draw.
We had 364 attendees for today’s webcast with EnterpriseDB, which is a huge number for that sort of thing.
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, Open source RDBMS, Relational database management systems | 1 Comment »
October 19th, 2007 Curt Monash
I’m doing another webinar on mid-range OLTP DBMS next Tuesday, at 12 noon Eastern. It’s sponsored by EnterpriseDB, who also sponsored one six months ago on the same subject. Hopefully, this one will be a bit fresher. Sign up today! The expected turnout is humongous.
Technorati Tags: EnterpriseDB, OLTP, database management system
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility | No Comments »
October 4th, 2007 Curt Monash
Way back in January, 2006, I wrote that MaxDB was not getting merged into MySQL. Given that, it makes sense for SAP to take back control of the product. As The Reg reports, that’s exactly what’s happening.
The bigger question is — how’s MySQL’s SAP certification coming along? Whether or not MySQL gets SAP-certified and included in the SAP product catalog will be a huge indicator of whether it’s ready for OLTP prime time.
Anybody want to place bets on which midrange OLTP DBMS gets certified for SAP first, MySQL or EnterpriseDB? MySQL has a large head start, but if my friends and clients and EnterpriseDB have their priorities straight, they might wind up lapping MySQL even so.
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Technorati Tags: MySQL, MaxDB, SAP
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, MySQL, OLTP database management, SAP, BI Accelerator, and MaxDB | 4 Comments »
July 26th, 2007 Curt Monash
More and more, I find myself addressing questions of database portability and transparency, most particularly in the cases of EnterpriseDB, Ants Software, and now also Dataupia. None of those three efforts is very large yet, but so far I’d rate their respective buzzes to be very encouraging in the case of EnterpriseDB, non-discouraging or better in the case of Ants, and too early to judge for Dataupia. On the whole, it definitely seems like a matter worthy of attention.
With that as backdrop, where is all this compatibility/portability/transparency stuff going to lead? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in ANTs Software, Dataupia, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility, Progress, Apama, and DataDirect, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
July 20th, 2007 Curt Monash
The Register has a rip-roaring story on a (currently partial) conversion from Oracle to EnterpriseDB. Basically, FTD is royally pissed-off at Oracle, and EnterpriseDB stepped in with a very fast conversion.
Apparently, FTD decided they needed to Do Something after a Valentine’s Day meltdown, and the project was completed on EnterpriseDB in time for Mother’s Day.
One note of caution: When a user supports a vendor’s marketing this emphatically, it usually has gotten nice breaks on price and/or service. Your mileage may vary. On the other hand, EnterpriseDB is still a small enough company that, if you want them to love you to death, you can be pretty well assured that you’re important enough to them that they’ll do so.
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Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Oracle, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility | 2 Comments »
June 12th, 2007 Curt Monash
ANTs Software’s primary focus isn’t really even on DBMS any more. Even so, it just announced a deal to replace Informix in a large retail chain’s in-store systems. (In its 1990s heyday, Informix wound up running in-store systems at an impressive list of major retailers. Of course, Informix was long ago acquired by IBM.)
EnterpriseDB has probably passed ANTs in the DBMS plug-compability business. And taken together they’re still pretty small. Even so, plug-compatible DBMS replacement has to be taken seriously as a (possibly) emerging trend. Economically, it makes all the sense in the world.
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Posted in ANTs Software, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, IBM and DB2, OLTP database management, Portability, transparency, and plug-compatibility, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
May 3rd, 2007 Curt Monash
The replay of last Wednesday’s webinar is now available at this link. It will probably stay up for 3-6 months. There may also be a more persistent link to the audio part only, which I will supply if and when I get it.
The main subject was what kinds of features differentiate OLTP DBMS, and for what kinds of applications you should care about them. As an introduction I spelled out some of my thoughts on what kind of overall DBMS product portfolio enterprises should and do have.
Want to continue getting great research about DBMS, analytics, data integration, and other technologies related to data management? Then get a FREE subscription, by RSS/Atom or e-mail! We recommend taking the integrated feed for all our blogs, but blog-specific ones are also easily available.
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Relational database management systems | No Comments »
April 19th, 2007 Curt Monash
At noon Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 25, I’ll be doing a webinar about midrange OLTP/multipurpose DBMS, sponsored by EnterpriseDB, who not coincidentally are purveyors of same. You can sign up here.
Below is some of EnterpriseDB’s verbiage promoting the event. I particularly like the part where they refer to me as a “renowned industry guru.” 
The DBMS market, once thought to be an oligopoly, is experiencing some refreshing disruption - thanks to open source-based databases that are proving viable alternatives to traditional, more costly incumbents. Whether you’re trying to control database costs or support new application development, there’s never been a better time to reevaluate your database platform strategy.
But, how can you realistically compare alternatives like MySQL and EnterpriseDB against established database platforms like Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server?
Let your applications be your guide.
In this webcast, renowned industry guru Curt Monash provides an objective context in which to evaluate and select the right DBMS based on your application’s needs. He’ll discuss how all DBMS’ features are not all created equal in the way they address application-specific demands. Particular focus will be given to the unique requirements of transaction-intensive applications.
Join us for this eSeminar and learn how to:
- Go beyond the typical feature checklists of self-proclaimed “enterprise-class” offerings to provide a more in-depth barometer of a DBMS’ true capabilities
- Define the DBMS platform requirements for a variety of transaction-intensive applications
- Delineate between must-have and nice-to-have DBMS features for your application
Posted in EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range DBMS, OLTP database management, Relational database management systems | 2 Comments »