Open source
Discussion of relational database management systems that are offered through some version of open source licensing. Related subjects include:
Lessons from EnterpriseDB
I had a nice conversation yesterday with Jim Mlodgenski of EnterpriseDB, covering both generalities and EnterpriseDB-specific stuff. Many of the generalities were predictable, and none were terribly shocking. Even so, I am dressed as Captain Obvious, and shall repeat a few of the ones I found interesting below:
| Categories: EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range, OLTP, Open source, Structured documents, Theory and architecture | 2 Comments |
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.
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| Categories: Actian and Ingres, ANTs Software, Data warehousing, Emulation, transparency, portability, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Mid-range, OLTP, Open source, Oracle, PostgreSQL | 2 Comments |
Greenplum’s strategy
I talked with Greenplum honchos Bill Cook and Scott Yara yesterday. Bill is the new CEO, formerly head of Sun’s field operations. Scott is president, and in effect the marketing-guy co-founder. I still don’t know whether I really believe their technical story. But I do think I have a feel for what they’re trying to do. Key aspects of the Greenplum strategy include:
- Greenplum rewrote a lot of PostgreSQL to parallelize it, in the correct belief that MPP is the best way to go for high-end data warehousing.
- Indeed, Greenplum claims to have a general solution to DBMS parallelization. Unlike Netezza, DATallegro, Vertica, and Kognitio, Greenplum offers a row-oriented data store with a fairly full set of indexing techniques. You want star indices or bitmaps? They have them. (They even claimed to be used for some text management when last we talked, although that was for O’Reilly and Mark Logic seems to be O’Reilly’s main text-indexing vendor.)
- Greenplum’s main sales strategy is to be part of Sun’s product line, bundled into Thumper boxes as single-part-number Sun offerings. They certainly could add other hardware OEMs, just like Checkpoint sells firewalls through multiple appliance vendors. But at least for now it’s all about Sun.
| Categories: Data warehouse appliances, Data warehousing, Greenplum, Open source, PostgreSQL | 5 Comments |
Opportunities for disruption in the OLTP database management market (deck-clearing post #2)
The standard Clayton Christensen “Innovator’s Dilemma” disruption narrative goes something like this:
- Market leaders have many advantages, including top technology.
- Followers come up with good technology too.
- The leaders stay ahead by making their products ever better and more complex.
- The followers sell into new or non-mainstream markets, at prices the leaders can’t match. So they dominate new markets.
- Old markets turn into low-margin commodity-fests.
- Old leaders are screwed.
And it’s really hard for market leaders to avert this sad fate, because the short- and intermediate-term margin hit would be too great.
I think the OLTP DBMS market is ripe for that kind of disruption – riper than commentators generally realize. Here are some key potential drivers:
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OLTP database management system market – the consensus isn’t ALL wrong (deck-clearing post #1)
Most of what I’ve written lately about database management seems to have been focused on analytic technologies. But I have a lot to say on the OLTP (OnLine Transaction Processing) side too. So let’s start by clearing the decks. Here’s a list of some consensus views that I in essence agree with:
- Oracle is the top of the line, and has nothing wrong with it other than cost of ownership and the non-joys of doing business with Oracle Corporation.
- DB2/mainframe is a fine product, but only if you like IBM mainframes.
- DB2/open systems is another fine product, but it’s hard to think of reasons to use it over Oracle.
- Microsoft SQL Server has great cost of ownership if you’re a Windows (server) shop anyway, especially on the administrative side. It does most but not all of what Oracle does.
- Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise is a lot like SQL Server, but without the Windows dependence or the great Microsoft tools. If you have it installed or are Chinese, you should strongly consider using it, but otherwise there are better alternatives.
- Progress’ DBMS is great if you don’t need any of the features it’s missing. Administration, for example, is a super-low-cost breeze. But why use it unless you’re also using the Progress development tools?
- Intersystems’ Cache’ is another fine mid-range product that involves buying into the vendors’ whole tool set – all the more so because it isn’t relational.
- Small-footprint embedded DBMS, from vendors such as Sybase’s iAnywhere division or Solid Information Technologies, are off in their own little world. Mainly, that world is telecom, with a satellite in medical devices, although other kinds of networked equipment also sometimes use these products.
- IBM’s non-DB2 database management products – IMS, Informix, etc. – are fine things to stick with until you have to change. Ditto products from Software AG, Computer Associates, Cincom, etc.
- MySQL Version 4 is an OLTP joke, but it’s a joke many people share. (Hey — a lot of blogs, including mine, run on WordPress and MySQL 4.)
- Until Ingres is meaningfully marketed and sold outside its installed base, it’s not worth worrying about.
- PostgreSQL is more significant as the underpinning of other products — mainly EnterpriseDB in the OLTP space — than it is in its own right.
MySQL IPO — not so fast
MySQL told Computer Business Review they’re thinking strongly of an IPO this year, but also wouldn’t mind waiting. Frankly, I think they shouldn’t come public until they can prove solid acceptance of Version 5, because Version 4 remains in too many ways an embarrassment.
Also, investors need a chance to see whether MySQL’s new enterprise all-you-can-eat pricing scheme is a success, both financially and in terms of service delivery.
| Categories: MySQL, Open source | 4 Comments |
EnterpriseDB’s Oracle clone — fact or fiction?
PostgreSQL-based EnterpriseDB is attracting a bit of attention. Philip Howard, as he does of most products, takes a favorable view. Seth Grimes regards the company as dirty, rotten liars. The company suggests that Everquest gameplay* runs on an RDBMS. I find this inherently implausible, and hence am starting out with a skeptical view of the company’s marketing messages.
*As in character movement. The idea that character inventory is stored in an RDBMS I find vastly more credible. Ditto other less volatile aspects of character state.
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| Categories: ANTs Software, Emulation, transparency, portability, EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, Games and virtual worlds, Mid-range, OLTP, Open source, Oracle, PostgreSQL | 4 Comments |
Can MySQL scale?
Making the rounds of cyberspace is a report by MediaTemple, a hosting company, on how it believes it will solve its difficulties with grid-based MySQL hosting.
Takeaways include:
- MySQL has real issues with handling diverse, high-volume workloads.
- When MySQL gets overloaded, database corruption is routine.
- Some people write really, really bad MySQL web applications.
With the possible exception of #2, I doubt any of this surprises anybody.
| Categories: MySQL, Open source | 6 Comments |
Federation in the MySQL empire
Marten Micklos, CEO of MySQL, gave a recent speech speculating about a big federated “database in the sky,” providing all sorts of Web 2.0 benefits. Apparently, the idea isn’t at all fleshed out yet. Even so, I have a nagging suspicion he’s pointing in somewhat the wrong direction.
That’s because I think federating relational databases is a generically bad idea. You can federate sets of services, and you can generate services from relational databases – and that’s where DBMS2 (DataBase Management System Services) got its name. This is a superior approach to direct database federation, for two main reasons. (By “direct federation,” I mean some sort of structure in which there’s a giant virtual database whose schema more or less directly incorporates much of the schema of each individual database.)
| Categories: MySQL, Open source, Theory and architecture | 8 Comments |
Myths about DATallegro, Ingres, open source, etc.
Sometimes, when one talks to a company about a close competitor, what one hears may not be 100% strictly accurate. Yesterday, I more than once heard claims that sounded oddly like “DATallegro has to open source whatever software it develops.” Today, DATallegro CEO Stuart Frost clarified as follows:
• DATallegro has no (little?) legal obligation to open source anything. Even the version of Ingres they use is not the GPL one.
• They do give a few enhancements back to Ingres (via open source?) rather than maintain them themselves.
• The whole MPP technology is proprietary, in every sense of “proprietary.” (For example, they use a whole different optimizer than Ingres’s. I’ve forgotten whether the Ingres optimizer is also left in place.)