[ale] Database Info Thread

[Silveira, Damien]

Info from Linux World 
And the winner is...

Database Management
Winner: PostgreSQL 6.5.1 
Runner-up: Oracle8i 
Next to the Emacs versus vi, GNOME versus KDE, C versus anything, and
Linux versus everything wars, the most volatile category for this kind
of disagreement may well be databases. We restricted our choices to SQL
database servers, and looked for things like speed, reliability,
extensibility, compatibility, and enterprise-level scalability. Our one
regret is that we didn't get a chance to look at IBM's DB2 -- which is
one of our favorites on other platforms -- in time for this inaugural
Editors' Choice Awards. 
PostgreSQL 6.5.1: A full-featured object-relational database management
system (DBMS), PostgreSQL has become one of the most mature and powerful
open source tools available. It is quickly closing in on full ANSI 92
SQL compliance, and it has a range of very advanced features such as
r-tree indexing for geographical data and concurrency control at a lower
granularity than common row-level locking. The latter feature is unique
among enterprise databases, including Oracle, DB2, and Informix. 
The PostgreSQL team is very active, and there are constant improvements,
but every release is very stable. There is also considerable third-party
support, leading to bindings to C/C++, Java, Python, Perl, PHP, Tcl,
many query tools, and even some support for Japanese Kanji. PostgreSQL
is an excellent choice for all but the most sophisticated enterprise
uses. 
Oracle8i: Oracle Corp. shows that it's serious about the Linux market
with this port of its DBMS. Just about all the stability, security, and
features one expects from Oracle on Unix are immediately apparent,
including familiar developers' tools such as PL/SQL, Pro C/C++, and
JDBC. Of course, such power comes at a high cost of complexity and
administration, but it helps give Linux a place among the most critical
functions of IT, and even more so with the release of the innovative 8i
version of the DBMS. 

The full article can be found at 
http://linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-08/lw-08-penguin_1.html