3 ms·

I think because Postgres is commonly being considered as an alternative to MySQL rather than MSSQL or Oracle.

by crc32 11y ago

greggyb 11y ago
This does make some sense. Sometimes I forget how abnormal my own frame of reference is in comparison with the typical (at least of the vocal subset) HN poster.
davidgerard 11y ago
I dunno, getting the hell off Oracle to Postgres is fashionable as hell. We're doing it and EVERYTHING IS BETTER.
- threeseed 11y ago
  Half the reason you go with solutions like Oracle is because of (a) enterprise support and (b) easy access to talent pool. PostgreSQL has neither of these. So it may be fashionable but I don't know anyone who is doing it.
  - davidgerard 11y ago
    That's half the justification. Aaand it turns out the justification doesn't hold against practice. We're discovering that literally everything is better with Postgres. Mostly because instead of a single expensive point of failure, every app gets its own clustered PG pair. Because we can, because we don't have to think about licensing ever again. Just everything not having to play nicely with anything else makes a huge difference. The other nice thing is that PG is administerable by clear-thinking (and understand relational databases) non-specialists who can read a manual. You don't actually need big-ticket support unless you do. And, guess what? Our Oracle support was most keen to offer Postgres support, because they too can tell which way the wind is blowing. (PG 9.3 out of Ubuntu 14.04 repos. Failover pair with a primary and standby. Primary streams write-ahead log records to standby as they’re generated. Some script gaffer-tape to watch for primary failure and fail over (I think we haven’t ever yet actually had to invoke this). Conversions done by hand with ora2pg then faff and twiddling and unit tests. Gotchas: malformed sql that Oracle accepts but PG chokes on. All cobbled together just following the docs, almost certainly better ways to do all this.) As for anyone else doing it ... we were buying AppDynamics (which is frickin' awesome btw) and talking to them about our plans to move from Oracle to PG. They said quite a few of their customers were thinking similarly. So maybe it's our own personal bubbles differing, but I think it's happening in at least some quarters.
    - threeseed 11y ago
      AppDynamics which I know very well is used by web shops. Very few of those are using Oracle and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were moving to something else. The majority of Oracle instances however are in the back rooms of enterprises.
      - davidgerard 11y ago
        Yeah, that's pretty plausible. Key point: it's possible. And unlike MySQL, Postgres is actually a proper database that can do what Oracle, MSSQL etc do. (We're also looking askance at our remaining MSSQL and have replaced one instance of the two with PG.)
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Half the reason you go with solutions like Oracle is because of (a) enterprise support and (b) easy access to talent pool. PostgreSQL has neither of these. If you need enterprise support for Postgres, there are vendors that offer it (EnterpriseDB is probably the closest to a "first party" equivalent.)
    - davidgerard 11y ago
      Our third-party Oracle support were most keen to offer PG support. They can tell which way the wind's blowing. (We haven't taken them up on it. We seriously can't see how we'll need it. But if you do need it, it's there.)
    - threeseed 11y ago
      Sure. But they are few and far between and absolutely do not have the same SLAs as someone like an Oracle, NEC, IBM etc. They are generally mom+pop shops. It doesn't really cut it for enterprises which is generally where you are finding Oracle instances.

I think because Postgres is commonly being considered as an alternative to MySQL rather than MSSQL or Oracle.

by crc32 11y ago

I think because Postgres is commonly being considered as an alternative to MySQL rather than MSSQL or Oracle.

This does make some sense. Sometimes I forget how abnormal my own frame of reference is in comparison with the typical (at least of the vocal subset) HN poster.

davidgerard 11y ago

I dunno, getting the hell off Oracle to Postgres is fashionable as hell. We're doing it and EVERYTHING IS BETTER.

threeseed 11y ago
Half the reason you go with solutions like Oracle is because of (a) enterprise support and (b) easy access to talent pool. PostgreSQL has neither of these. So it may be fashionable but I don't know anyone who is doing it.
- davidgerard 11y ago
  That's half the justification. Aaand it turns out the justification doesn't hold against practice. We're discovering that literally everything is better with Postgres. Mostly because instead of a single expensive point of failure, every app gets its own clustered PG pair. Because we can, because we don't have to think about licensing ever again. Just everything not having to play nicely with anything else makes a huge difference. The other nice thing is that PG is administerable by clear-thinking (and understand relational databases) non-specialists who can read a manual. You don't actually need big-ticket support unless you do. And, guess what? Our Oracle support was most keen to offer Postgres support, because they too can tell which way the wind is blowing. (PG 9.3 out of Ubuntu 14.04 repos. Failover pair with a primary and standby. Primary streams write-ahead log records to standby as they’re generated. Some script gaffer-tape to watch for primary failure and fail over (I think we haven’t ever yet actually had to invoke this). Conversions done by hand with ora2pg then faff and twiddling and unit tests. Gotchas: malformed sql that Oracle accepts but PG chokes on. All cobbled together just following the docs, almost certainly better ways to do all this.) As for anyone else doing it ... we were buying AppDynamics (which is frickin' awesome btw) and talking to them about our plans to move from Oracle to PG. They said quite a few of their customers were thinking similarly. So maybe it's our own personal bubbles differing, but I think it's happening in at least some quarters.
  - threeseed 11y ago
    AppDynamics which I know very well is used by web shops. Very few of those are using Oracle and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were moving to something else. The majority of Oracle instances however are in the back rooms of enterprises.
    - davidgerard 11y ago
      Yeah, that's pretty plausible. Key point: it's possible. And unlike MySQL, Postgres is actually a proper database that can do what Oracle, MSSQL etc do. (We're also looking askance at our remaining MSSQL and have replaced one instance of the two with PG.)
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Half the reason you go with solutions like Oracle is because of (a) enterprise support and (b) easy access to talent pool. PostgreSQL has neither of these. If you need enterprise support for Postgres, there are vendors that offer it (EnterpriseDB is probably the closest to a "first party" equivalent.)
  - davidgerard 11y ago
    Our third-party Oracle support were most keen to offer PG support. They can tell which way the wind's blowing. (We haven't taken them up on it. We seriously can't see how we'll need it. But if you do need it, it's there.)
  - threeseed 11y ago
    Sure. But they are few and far between and absolutely do not have the same SLAs as someone like an Oracle, NEC, IBM etc. They are generally mom+pop shops. It doesn't really cut it for enterprises which is generally where you are finding Oracle instances.