What hardware platforms do Postgres Plus servers support?

Standard and Advanced Server both support Linux^® x86/32 and x86/64, Windows^®, and Mac OS^® X. In addition, Advanced Server supports Solaris^® x86/64 (Intel^®),and Solaris SPARC^®.

 

What Operating Systems does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support?

• Red Hat^® Enterprise Linux 4 & 5
• CentOS 4.0
• SuSE^® Linux Enterprise Server 9.3 & 10
• Unbuntu^® 6.06 LTS
• Windows 2000, 2003
• Windows Vista^®

What are the maximum sizes/capacities of a Postgres Plus server databases? E.g. Maximum table size, etc?

• Maximum Database Size is Unlimited
• Maximum Table Size is 32 TeraBytes (TB)
• Maximum Row Size is 1.6 TB
• Maximum Field Size is 1 GB
• Maximum Rows per Table is Unlimited
• Maximum Columns per Table is 250 - 1600 depending on column types
• Maximum Indexes per Table is Unlimited

What is PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source relational database system. It has more than 20 years of active development and a proven architecture that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, data integrity, and correctness. It is fully ACID compliant, has full support for foreign keys, joins, views, triggers, and stored procedures (in multiple languages).

An enterprise class database, PostgreSQL boasts sophisticated features such as Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC), point in time recovery (PITR), tablespaces, asynchronous replication, nested transactions (savepoints), online/hot backups, a sophisticated query planner/optimizer, and write ahead logging for fault tolerance. It supports international character sets, multi-byte character encodings, Unicode, and it is locale-aware for sorting, case-sensitivity, and formatting. It is highly scalable both in the sheer quantity of data it can manage and in the number of concurrent users it can accommodate. There are active PostgreSQL systems in production environments that manage in excess of 4 terabytes of data.

 

What is Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Postgres Plus Advanced Server is an enterprise-class relational database management system (RDBMS) that rivals the power and feature set of Oracle^®. It is also compatible with applications written for Oracle. This means that applications written for Oracle run on Postgres Plus Advanced Server without modification and Oracle-skilled developers can use it with minimal re-training.

Postgres Plus Advanced Server is based on PostgreSQL, the world's most advanced open source database, ensuring world-class data integrity, security, and performance necessary for enterprise environments. In addition, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of an enterprise database solution powered by Postgres Plus Advanced Server is only a small fraction of the TCO of a comparable Oracle-powered solution.

 

What is the difference between PostgreSQL and Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

EnterpriseDB adds additional functionality and capabilities in the following areas:

• Oracle Feature Compatibility
• Performance Features
• Productivity Tools - Postgres Studio, DBA Management Server, DBA Monitoring Console, Replication Server and Migration Studio
• Indemnification

What is the difference between Postgres Plus Standard and Advanced Servers?

Starting with the features in Standard Server, Advanced Server is then optimized for large scale enterprise wide applications. It contains additional powerful features for database application development that also enable applications written for Oracle databases to run on top of Postgres database engine. Many of the features enhance performance such as: DynaTune, EDB*Loader, and Distributed Federated Queries.

 

Advanced Server also includes the following high performance features not found in Standard Server: GridSQL pre-bundled, Infinite Cache, Asynchronous Pre-Fetch, Query Optimization Hints, DynaTune, and DRITA. For more sophisticated programming, Advanced Server includes built in packages, programmable Bulk Collect and Bulk Bind functions, explicit transaction control, and audit logging.

 

Finally, Advanced Server provides a more sophisticated suite of tools including Postgres Studio with an enhanced debugger for in context application debugging, the DBA Management Server, the DBA Monitoring console, the GridSQL Monitoring console, the Migration Studio, and an Oracle Replication console.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers support XML data types?

Yes.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers support LOBs?

Yes, both blobs and clobs are supported.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers support Varrays and table collections?

Postgres Plus servers v8.4 support table collections. Varrays are supported as a simple bounded table collection.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers support Text data, indexing and searching?

Yes, Postgres Plus servers have Full Text Search capabilities. The tsearch2 module provides backwards-compatible text search functionality for applications that used contrib/tsearch2 before text searching was integrated into core PostgreSQL in release 8.3. There is no extra cost for Full Text Search.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers support Partitioning?

Yes, it is a fundamental feature of the database and supports Range, List and Hash partitioning (GridSQL).

 

What kinds of partitioning do Postgres Plus servers support?

Range, List and Hash partitioning (in GridSQL) are supported. There is no extra cost for partitioning support.

 

What type of locking model do Postgres Plus servers have?

Postgres Plus Advanced Server uses Row Level locking with non-escalating locks.

 

What isolation level(s) do Postgres Plus servers support?

Read Committed by default. We can also support Repeatable Read and Serializable.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers support Spatial / GeoSpatial data?

Yes via the PostGIS module bundled with Postgres Plus. PostGIS adds support for geographic objects to the Postgres Plus Advanced Server /PostgreSQL object-relational database. In effect, PostGIS "spatially enables" the Postgres Plus Advanced Server /PostgreSQL server, allowing it to be used as a backend spatial database for geographic information systems (GIS). There is no extra cost for spatial data support.

 

What is Infinite Cache?

Infinite Cache allows you to increase the amount of data maintained as in-memory cache by distributing the cache across existing inexpensive commodity hardware farms. Compression of cache data allows storing entire databases in a durable fashion for lightning fast performance. By storing more or all data in a RAM based cache there are many fewer disk operations which are much slower. Infinite Cache is also completely transparent to applications and so requires no special caching code by application developers to safeguard the durability of any write operations.

 

How does Infinite Cache compare to caching everything in the application server?

While traditionally, the architecture of caching everything at the application tier has been effective, maintaining the cache has been difficult to code and burdensome. Additional development is necessary in the application to properly synchronize the cache with the data in the database and it limits the overall data flexibility by restricting how the data in the backend database is changed.

 

I have a transactional system, will Infinite Cache still help?

Yes. Infinite Cache is most effective in a read-mostly environment, but the performance benefits are still tangible as transactions are mixed into the workload. For example, even in more extreme transactional cases such as a 50-50 read vs. write mix, Infinite Cache still provides a 2X performance gain.

 

How big (memory) can I scale Infinite Cache?

Infinite Cache can scale to many terabytes and beyond.

 

Is there a per socket fee for Infinite Cache blade machines utilized by Postgres Plus Advanced Server in an Infinite Cache configuration?

No, there is no additional cost. Customers may have as many cache blade machines as they want associated with a properly licensed Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

 

What kind of server should I use for my Infinite Cache servers?

Any commodity hardware can be used. The need for CPU and disk IO is minimal with heavy reliance on memory.

 

What kind of network connectivity is needed between the database and Infinite Cache servers?

With Infinite Cache, the faster the network, the better. Performance does increase when using faster network infrastructures such as Infiniband, but simple Gigabit Ethernet is a capable alternative.

 

What happens if one of the Infinite Cache servers goes offline?

If one of the Infinite Cache servers goes offline momentarily such as a network interruption, Postgres Plus Advanced Server will queue the cache update until the cache server comes back online for the write. If the outage continues for a prolonged period of time, the Infinite Cache server will be marked offline and other Ininite Cache servers will absorb the load until an administrator restores the downed server to health.

 

Can I dynamically add Infinite Cache servers to the database?

Not at this time. It is straightforward to add additional cache servers, but it does require a database server restart.

 

Do the Infinite Cache servers need to be running the same operating system as the database server?

No, Your database server could be running on Windows, Linux, Mac or Solaris, but initially the Infinite Cache servers need to be running on Linux. Any of the supported Linux distributions such as RHEL and SLES cache be used on the cache servers.

 

How much Inifinite Cache do I need in relation to the size of my database?

The default settings of Infinite Cache compresses the data as it is put into the cache. This allows the cache to be significantly smaller than the physical data size. Depending on the data contained in the database, the cache can be up to 10 times smaller then the physical size.

 

What special caching code needs to be included in my client applications to use Infinite Cache?

None. Infinite Cache is completely transparent to the calling application. Data durability is handled automatically by the Infinite Cache architecture.

 

What is the difference between GridSQL and Infinite Cache?

Both provide horizontal scaling architectures. GridSQL is appropriate for extremely large data warehousing applications and addresses distributing physical data storage and parallel queries across multiple machines. Infinite Cache is targeted at OLTP workloads with lots of random reads and addresses distributing fast performing in-memory cache data across multiple machines.

 

What is GridSQL?

GridSQL for Postgres Plus Standard and Advanced Server is a horizontal scale out architecture that enables organizations to easily meet complex Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence challenges at a fraction of the cost of traditional solution. GridSQL uses a true grid technology that implements a "shared-nothing", distributed data architecture. GridSQL for Postgres Plus Advanced Server enables OLAP applications to leverage the power of multiple commodity servers while appearing as a single database to the application. GridSQL enables enterprises to:

• Quickly and easily create, maintain, and access very large databases for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing applications,
• Offload reporting from expensive hardware platforms onto an inexpensive grid of commodity hardware, creating significant savings,
• Run reporting and other applications with very large datasets, improving organizational decision-making,
• Improve organizational productivity and agility by enabling quick access to large amounts of information,
• Provide linear horizontal scalability.

What is Replication?

Replication is the process by which transactions that occur on one database system are repeated on a second (or third or fourth...) system to keep two versions of that table/data in sync. There are two forms of replication: a) Trigger based and Log based. In trigger based replaction, some form of a database trigger (usually built into the kernel for performance reasons) fires and puts the changed data in a log table where it awaits being published to other databases that want a copy of that data.

With log based replication, a process mines the transaction logs of the database and records the appropriate changes in a log table where it is published or pushed down to destination databases. The destination databases either have the data sent to them or they pull it off the log table and apply it to their copy of the tables.

 

When is replication used/recommended?

Replication is commonly used to keep copies of reference data synchronized at multiple sites. This reference data is relatively static but is needed by the application/users that access the database at various remote locations, i.e. one system in the United States, one in the UK and another in Asia. Each location needs a copy of the reference data to support their local operations.

Another use of replication is to offload reporting from a production OLTP system to a second system. This prevents transaction oriented and query oriented processes from competing for resources and degrading performance as well as allowing each system to be optimally tuned for their different workloads. Finally, replication is an important component of Highly Available database systems.

 

What type of replication does Advanced Server support?

Postgres Plus servers support Trigger based replication between Postgres Plus databases and between Postgres Plus and Oracle databases. Postgres Plus replication is a Master to (multiple) Slave(s) configuration.

 

What customers are using replication?

FTD.com uses EnterpriseDB's Oracle to Postgres Plus replication. FTD replicates data from their online orders system to a second database system where they run their reporting applications.

 

Do you have synchronous replication?

Not yet.

 

What is Oracle RAC?

Oracle RAC, a.k.a. Real Application Clusters, is Oracle's cluster solution for high availability, scalability and performance. It is based on a shared everything architecture. While the name implies that it works for any or all real applications, that is not always the case. Applications can experience severe performance and scalability problems if not designed to be 'RAC-aware'. This is due to the limitations of a shared everything architecture.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support RAC?

No. RAC is based on a shared everything architecture whereas Postgres Plus Advanced Server is based on a shared nothing architecture. Our version of a horizontally scalable system for large query oriented databases is GridSQL.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support clustered databases?

Yes. Postgres Plus Advanced Server supports and is deployed in clustered configurations at many customers. Clustering software such as Linux-HA or Red Hat Cluster server is necessary to setup this Active/Passive cluster.

 

What high availability (HA) solutions does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support?

Postgres Plus Advanced Server supports the following HA solutions:

• Active/Passive clustering requiring clusterware like LinuxHA or Red Hat Cluster Server
• Standby database for Disaster Recovery
• Replication
• Pgpool (connection pool management)

What is Linux-HA?

Linux-HA is clusterware that provides and an Active/Passive architecture solution for Postgres Plus Advanced Server. Linux-HA provides death-of-node detection, communications between the nodes, and cluster management. Linux-HA provides sophisticated high-availability (failover) capabilities on a wide range of platforms, supporting several tens of thousands of mission critical sites all over the globe.

 

What is Red Hat Cluster?

This is Red Hat's version of clusterware (see Linux-HA above).

 

What is Veritas Cluster (see Linux-HA above)?

This is Veritas' version of clusterware.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers support connection pooling?

Yes via pgpool which is a connection pooling/caching mechanism for PostgreSQL and Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

 

What is pgpool?

pgpool is a connection pool server for PostgreSQL based databases. pgpool runs between Postgres clients (front ends) and servers (back ends) and caches a collection of established connections to the database so clients can connect quickly improving performance. A Postgres client connects to pgpool as if it were a standard Postgres Plus Advanced Server. Also, pgpool can use two Postgres Plus Advanced Servers for HA fail over purposes. If the first server goes down, pgpool will automatically switch to the secondary server. Moreover, pgpool supports a scheduled switch over.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support/have a Data Guard feature?

Yes. Postgres Plus Advanced Server has Standby Database support. It is similar to Oracle's physical standby database where the log files are archived and shipped to a remote site where a standby database is in constant recovery mode until a disaster occurs and a failover is performed.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server have a logical standby database feature?

Postgres Plus uses Replication as an alternative technology that allows you to have a reporting database that is separate from your production database just like the logical standby database would allow.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support online backups, a.k.a. hot backups?

Yes.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support database links?

Yes. There is currently support for database links between Postgres Plus Advanced Server databases and between Postgres Plus Advanced Server and Oracle database.

 

What version of Oracle is Postgres Plus Advanced Server compatible with?

Postgres Plus Advanced Server is not compatible with a specific version of Oracle. Instead, Postgres Plus Advanced Server is compatible with the core functionality available in Oracle SQL Extensions and PL/SQL, as well as the most commonly used features. Postgres Plus Advanced Server can migrate/run applications that were developed in Oracle 7, 8, 8i, 9i, 10g and 11g.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support ROWNUM?

Yes. It also supports SYSDATE, DUAL, decode(), NVL, definer/invoker rights, and many more Oracle features including PL/SQL. Contact EnterpriseDB for documentation detailing all the Oracle compatibility features.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support Materialized Views?

Yes. Postgres Plus Advanced Server doesn't have a feature called Materialized Views but using other features, you can easily setup and support materialized views.

 

How good is Postgres Plus Advanced Server's performance compared to Oracle?

Overall, Postgres Plus Advanced Server typically performs about 95% as well as Oracle. For certain operations, like INSERT statements, Postgres Plus Advanced Server has been shown to outperform Oracle. The key to evaluating Postgres Plus Advanced Server's performance is using a price / performance ratio. Most enterprises' pay a significantly large sum of money for small or diminishing performance gains with Oracle.

 

Does Oracle Forms work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Forms 6i may work if you use OCA (Oracle's Open Client Adapter) to connect to Postgres Plus Advanced Server. Later versions of Forms do not support OCA. This has not been fully tested but according to Oracle, it should work.

 

Is EDB*Wrap compatible with Oracle.s PL/SQL wrapper capability?

EDB*Wrap provides comparable stored procedure obfuscation as Oracle's wrap capability. However, it is not compatible. i.e. Oracle wrapped stored procedures will not run in Advanced Server until re-wrapped with EDB*Wrap.

 

Does Oracle Reports work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Yes. FTD.com is using Oracle Reports against Postgres Plus Advanced Server in their production reporting system.

 

Does Business Objects work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Yes. This has been certified

 

Does Cognos^® work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Yes.

 

Where is the migration tool?

The migration features are accessible from the Migration Studio tool installed on your system.

 

What type of data modeling tools work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

The AllFusion® ERwin®Data Modeler from Computer Associates supports Postgres Plus Advanced Server. MicroOlap has a database modeling tool that supports Postgres Plus Advanced Server. The Clay plugin for Eclipse supports modeling for Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

 

What is EnterpriseDB's DBA Management Server?

EnterpriseDB DBA Management Server is a powerful database monitoring, profiling, reporting, and querying tool that enables DBAs and developers to analyze, manage and tune any number of Postgres Plus Advanced Server or PostgreSQL databases from a single Web browser. DBA Management Server also delivers richly formatted reports in both HTML and PDF formats. DBA Management Server users can:

• Locate and tune complex queries based on usage
• Monitor real-time user activity and lock status
• Prioritize and execute commands based on user-defined rules
• Analyze log files on both local and remote databases using a single interface
• Create detailed statistical analyses of tables, indexes, and columns
• View and modify runtime configuration parameters
• Execute and view ad-hoc queries using a single interface

What is EnterpriseDB's Postgres Studio?

Postgres Studio is an enterprise-class, cross-platform developer and DBA console that users of Oracle database tools can use with virtually no re-training. Postgres Studio users can:

• Browse multiple EnterpriseDB, MySQL^®, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server^®, and Sybase^® databases simultaneously,
• Conduct sophisticated SQL query profiling and analysis,
• Dynamically monitoring database performance to optimize and tune Postgres Plus Advanced Server,
• Use pre-configured wizards for security, backup, and restore.

What is Migration Studio?

Migration Studio comes with Advanced Server and provides migration from Oracle, Sybase, and SQL Server databases to Postgres. It migrates Oracle schema, data, triggers, stored procedures, packages, synonyms, functions, etc. For SQL Server and Sybase it migrates schema and data.

 

What databases does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support migrations from?

Postgres Plus Advanced Server migrates Oracle schema(tables, indexes, constraints), data, triggers, stored procedures, packages, synonyms, functions, etc. It migrates MySQL, SQL Server, and Sybase schema and data.

 

Can I migrate SQL Server to Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Yes. Our migration toolkit will automatically migrate your tables, indexes, constraints and data to Postgres Plus Advanced Server. If you have stored procedures, you will need to use a 3rd party tool such as SwisSQL to convert them to PL/SQL and then our migration tool to migrate them to Postgres. We can provide expert consulting services to assist customers with this since we have done this before.

 

Can I migrate Sybase to Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Yes. Our migration toolkit will automatically migrate your tables, indexes, constraints and data to Postgres Plus Advanced Server. If you have stored procedures, you will need to use a 3rd party tool such as SwisSQL to convert them to PL/SQL and then our migration tool to migrate them to Postgres. We can provide expert consulting services to assist customers with this since we have done this before.

 

Does Toad^® from Quest^® work with Postgres Plus servers?

Quest has a version of Toad called Toad for Data Analysts that works with Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

 

What tools does Postgres Plus Advanced Server offer for monitoring your database?

EnterpriseDB provides the DBA Management Server that provides you with a web based view into the performance of your database and database server. It supports: views like transaction counts, memory reads, disk reads, User/Lock activity, Logs access, interactive Queries, Job Scheduler, various reports in HTML or PDF format, and more.

 

Which ETL (Extract/Transform/Load) utilities work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Two open source tools are Kettle and Talend. Informattica can use Postgres as a source or destination database, just not a repository. If the tool supports ODBC or JDBC connections, they typically can work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server as a source or destination.

 

What tools does EnterpriseDB offer for database application development?

EnterpriseDB provides the Postgres Studio which allows you to browse Postgres Plus Advanced Server, PostgreSQL, Sybase, SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL databases. It also provides you with a GUI tool to develop your triggers and stored procedures and performing debugging of your code.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server have a Perl driver?

Yes, the PostgreSQL driver will work fine except in the case of calling stored procedures with OUT/INOUT parameter in Postgres Plus Advanced Server. In that case the Perl can utilize our ODBC driver for calling stored procedures with OUT/INOUT parameters.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers support Ruby?

Yes, via the PostgreSQL driver.

 

What Programming Languages does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support?

PL/PgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java^®, PL/PHP, PL/Py (Python), PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, and PL/sh (Unix Shell).

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support OLAP in the database?

No. We are working with 3rd party vendors to provide this capability.

 

What Business Intelligence (BI) tools work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

We have certified with Business Objects and Pentaho.

 

How can I connect a QT 4.x application with Postgres in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment?

You have two basic options for connecting a QT application to a PostgreSQL based database on RHEL. The first option is based on the QPSQL driver and the second is based on the QODBC. The easiest, and most performant way to connect to Postgres is using the QPSQL driver supplied with QT. The QT PostgreSQL Connector is C++ and cross platform. The native driver uses libpq (the Postgres driver) under the hood which is fast, and allows the user to access the low level libpq interface for more specialized applications and the full features of Postgres and Postgres Plus Advanced Server. Depending on the build of the underlying libpq, this also allows the use of SSL, Kerberos, SSPI/GSSPI, LDAP connection management and other libpq features.

The second basic option is to connect using ODBC. The QODBC driver is more appropriate when building an application which must support multiple different backend database engines. It can be slower, due to the additional abstraction layer, and doesn't allow the use of some advanced Postgres/Postgres Plus features (e.g. there's no way to use asynchronous notifications or use the call statement interface).

The drivers are implemented as database plugins that you can compile using whatever libpq build you like. For more information visit: http://doc.trolltech.com/4.5/sql-driver.html#qpsql-for-postgresql-version-7-3-and-above

Do PeopleSoft applications run on Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Technically they can, but from a support point of view, Oracle will not support you if you do this.

 

Will Oracle Applications run on Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

No. Oracle's applications like their E-Business Suite are very proprietary and will not run on EnterpriseDB.

 

Will SQL*Net based applications work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

SQL*Net applications utilize OCI to connect to Oracle and thus if you replace the OCI driver with the Postgres Plus Advanced Server OCL driver, most applications will work.

 

What is Oracle's OCI?

OCI is the Oracle Call Interface. It is an API that allows C or C++ applications to communicated to Oracle using its native protocol.

 

Can my OCI application work against Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

Yes. The OCL layer in Postgres Plus Advanced Server supports most of the functions that Oracle's OCI supports and thus applications can be pointed to our library and work.

 

What is OCL?

OCL is the Open Client lLbrary. It is the equivalent to the Oracle OCI that allows applications written to OCI to work natively with Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support embedded SQL?

Yes. For C based applications, we have ECPG which is a pre-compiler.

 

Do I have to rewrite the SQL that I have hardcoded in my application to make it work with Postgres Plus Advanced Server?

No. Postgres Plus Advanced Server supports ANSI SQL and the Oracle extensions to SQL.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support Java stored procedures?

Yes, via the PL/Java language extension.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers work with Hibernate?

Yes, we have certified with Hibernate. You would use the PostgreSQL dialect when configuring Hibernate.

 

Do Postgres Plus servers work with the JBoss application server?

Yes, we even bundle JBoss as part of Advanced Server's DBA Management Server.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server work with the IBM WebSphere application server?

Yes. WebSphere connects to databases via JDBC which we fully support.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server work with the BEA Weblogic application server?

Yes. Similar to WebSphere, BEA uses JDBC to connect to Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

 

Does Postgres Plus Advanced Server support .Net applications?

Yes, we provide a .Net adapter.