PostgreSQL Global Development Group this week is shipping Version 7.4 of its open source PostGreSQL Object Relational Database Management System.
Data warehousing functionality has been improved in the product through executer improvements that allow analysis queries to run faster, according to Bruce Momjian, a PostgreSQL representative. The database is attracting converts from commercially available products, Momjian said.
“People in our community (are) moving over from Oracle (Corp.), Informix,” and other databases, he said.
Saying the product provides commercial-grade enterprise database functionality with low cost of ownership, the company is including new features such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Opteron optimization, improved index maintenance tools and enhanced support of full text indexing to add ranked result sets.
To improve query and procedure performance, the company also has added hash aggregation in memory, query planner improvement for subqueries, a new wire protocol, and expanded functional and expressional indexes.
ANSI SQL standard compliance has been enhanced through an overhaul of messaging internals and improved metadata reporting. Online documentation has been reorganized and expanded. GUI tools functioning with the product also has been improved.
The database is offered free of charge. Online community support also is free. Companies such as Software Research Associates can provide commercial support, Momjian said.