Not working for EDB anymore

Well, I am no longer working for EnterpriseDB. It was fun while it lasted but it's over so I am moving on. I found a new job, locally. It's pure Oracle and I will get to use Real Application Clusters in a production environment. That's something I haven't done in the past so I am looking forward to it. It's also a java, .net and Oracle Forms shop and they are doing some interesting things with telecommunications and SMS.

From now on, I will only need to travel for conferences. No more trips to New Jersey. That's kind of a drag as I was almost at elite status on Continental. I have two more conferences this year and it just might be enough. I may even take a trip on my own just to get the miles. One of the trips is from Tampa to San Francisco, and back, so that will get me very close. The other is to Virginia and back.

I am a database geek and I will be keeping an eye on EDB just as I did in the past. I will probably post here at the EDB blog about as frequently as I have been (not often). Or, I may let this one die and just do any EDB posting on my postgres blog. That actually makes the most sense. I think I will cross post this one there and make this my last dedicated posting on this blog.

I also plan to keep up with Postgres, for personal knowledge, just as I do MySQL. I actually want to install GridSQL and see how it performs for a variety of different applications.

On the upside, I can now call EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus Advanced Server, PP AS, without marketing having fit. ;-) Heck, if I think of it as Advanced Server Software, I can call it the PP ASS. heh But I would never do that.

So, I can guess I can close out this blog now. Later.

LewisC

Technorati : PPASS, career, job

EnterpriseDB Install Annoyance

This is just a little peeve of mine. When you install EnterpriseDB, you can choose either a full production license or the free EnterpriseDB Express version. On my laptop, I want to run the express version. I don't need it to use more than 1 gig of ram, more than 1 cpu or more than 6gb of disk. But I can't even install it because my hardware exceeds those specs.



Oracle Express Edition has the same limitations as EnterpriseDB Express (and so does Microsoft SQL Server Express), but Oracle (and MS) limit their hardware usage by building the limits into the software. You can install the software on hardware as big as you have and the software will limit itself while it is running.

The EnterpriseDB installer won't even let you install. That also has me wondering about using EnterpriseDB. Oracle allows a developer to download, install and use the full blown enterprise edition of Oracle without any kind of key or license beyond the developer license. It looks like developers can only freely use EnterpriseDB on low end software. I wonder how a developer developing for large databases could do so?

It just seems odd that open source developers complain about Oracle but Oracle has a more developer-friendly license than EnterpriseDB. I guess it is a side effect of the way EDB licenses for support vs for the software? I have a question open on the EDB support forum. I'll keep everyone posted on this topic.

oracle enterprisedb express license edb edbx

Bruce Momjian Interview in InformationWeek

InformationWeek has a good interview with Bruce: Open Source PostgreSQL Developer Bruce Momjian Spills The DB Beans.

In the interview, Bruce talks about how he spends one day a week at the EnterpriseDB site but most of his time working on Postgres.

There aren't a lot of quotes in the interview. I wonder if a longer interview is coming.

There are a few anti-comparisons between "bearded sage" Momjian and JBoss' Marc Fleury and, of course, the obligatory comparison to MySQL.

PostgreSQL sought to match major relational database systems and afterward addressed performance. "We didn't focus on performance until the end. MySQL had that right at the start," he acknowledges.

It's a short read but worth the time.

LewisC

oracle enterprisedb

RAC on Open Source: EntepriseDB GridSQL

This is just too cool. Today, EnterpriseDB announced at LinuxWorld that they are offering GridSQL, a data warehouse and OLAP clustering solution. According to the doc, the EnterpriseDB page for GridSQL, the tool offers:

• 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 informationThis is supposed to be a true, shared nothing approach to clustering. I, obviously, haven't had the chance to play with it yet but I will.

This is a scale out package for large databases. So I am guessing that you would be able to partition data across multiple machines but that is a total guess on my part. It may be just a CPU boost instead. I need to do some more research.

According to the documentation, GridSQL includes parallel query where EnterpriseDB (the database) decides how to spread the query across all databases in the grid. It does include a parallel query optimizer.

This i s an incredible step for EnterpriseDB. Check out the press release. I wonder how long it will be before they release GridSQL for PostgreSQL? RAC on open source? Free RAC? Interesting.

LewisC

oracle enterprisedb rac real application clusters gridsql parallel

EnterpriseDB Finalist in Two Categories at LinuxWorld

EnterpriseDB got the finalist nod for Best Database Solution, for the third year, and for GridSQL For EnterpriseDB. This is the first I have heard of GridSQL and I am looking forward to more info.

All it says in the announcement is:

GridSQL for EnterpriseDB Advanced Server is a new product that will be announced at LinuxWorld on Aug. 7, 2007.

About all I can think is that it is something like pgCluster which is a multi-master, bi-directional replication tool for PostgreSQL. I have a hard believing that's what it because 1) they already have a replication tool and 2) the naming would be incredibly unfortunate.

I say option 2 because when most people hear grid associated with "an Oracle compatible database", they think of Oracle RAC and/or Grid (which most people erroneously think is the same thing but that's a different blog).

So now I wait with baited breath. I wish I had gotten a head's up at least.

oracle enterprisedb gridsql linux world award pgcluster