This document summarizes a presentation comparing PostgreSQL and MySQL databases. It outlines the strengths and weaknesses of each, including PostgreSQL's strong advanced features and flexible licensing but lack of integrated replication, and MySQL's replication capabilities but immature security and programming models. It also discusses common application types for each database and provides an overview of the EnterpriseDB company.

1. The Great Debate:
PostgreSQL versus MySQL
Jim Mlodgenski
VP, Technical Services
EnterpriseDB

2. Agenda
• Open Source Database Trends
• PostgreSQL Strengths
• PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• MySQL Strengths
• MySQL Weaknesses
• Application Types
• About EnterpriseDB

3. Agenda
• Open Source Database Trends
• PostgreSQL Strengths
• PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• MySQL Strengths
• MySQL Weaknesses
• Application Types
• About EnterpriseDB

4. Open Source Database Trends

5. Open Source Database Trends (cont.)

6. Open Source Database Trends (cont.)

7. Open Source Database Trends (cont.)
Battle for Open Source Database Dominance

8. Open Source Database Trends (cont.)
Battle for Database Dominance

9. Agenda
• Open Source Database Trends
• PostgreSQL Strengths
• PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• MySQL Strengths
• MySQL Weaknesses
• Application Types
• About EnterpriseDB

10. PostgreSQL Strengths
• Strong Advanced Feature Support
– Triggers, Stored Procedures, Rules
– Server side languages
• SQL, Java, Ruby, Perl, Python, TCL, etc
– Point in Time Recovery
– Table partitioning
– Transactional DDL
– Table Inheritance

11. PostgreSQL Strengths (cont.)
• Strong Security
• Object Level Privileges assigned to “Roles & User”.
• Kerberos + SSL communication.
• Data Level Encryption (AES, 3DES, etc)
• Ability to utilise 3rd party Key Stores in a full PKI
infrastructure
• Foundation for full compliance with some of the strictest of
security standards (PCI Data Security Standard).
“By default PostgreSQL is probably the most security-aware database
available”
David Litchfield - The Database Hackers Handbook

12. PostgreSQL Strengths (cont.)
• Data Integrity
– Multi Version Concurrency Control
– Write Ahead Logging
– Online Backup
– Foreign Keys
– Constraints

13. PostgreSQL Strengths (cont.)
• Flexible BSD license
– Corporate IT developers can modify open source
code under the BSD license without having to
contribute back enhancements
– Independent Software Vendors are free to
redistribute without the fear of being “infected” by an
open source license

14. PostgreSQL Strengths (cont.)
• Strong Open Source Community
– Independent & Thriving Development Community
• 10 committers and ~200 reviewers
• 1,500 contributors and 10,000+ members
• 2,000,000+ downloads
– 20 years of enterprise-class development

15. Agenda
• Open Source Database Trends
• PostgreSQL Strengths
• PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• MySQL Strengths
• MySQL Weaknesses
• Application Types
• About EnterpriseDB

16. PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• Lack of an integrated replication solution
– External solutions are required
– There is no agreed solution in the
PostgreSQL community for the
majority of replication
requirements
– The current external solutions
have a high learning curve

17. PostgreSQL Weaknesses (cont.)
• No upgrade facility for major releases
– The data must be either exported or replicated to the
new version
• At least twice of the storage is needed during the upgrade process
• On large datasets, an upgrade is a very time consuming process

18. PostgreSQL Weaknesses (cont.)
• Performance issues
– Indexes can not be
used to directly return
the results of a query
– Query execution plans
are not cached
– Some update and delete operations leave expired
data in the data files causing more IO
– Bulk loading operations may become CPU bound

19. PostgreSQL Weaknesses (cont.)
• Lack of experienced production talent
– Many of the experienced
PostgreSQL administrators do
not have experience in large
corporate environments

20. PostgreSQL Weaknesses (cont.)
• Sparse Independent Software Vendor support
– There are few management and monitoring tools
capable of using PostgreSQL
– When tools are available, many times it is through a
generic ODBC or JDBC data source
– PostreSQL is Rarely the primarily database for an
application, including open source applications

21. Agenda
• Open Source Database Trends
• PostgreSQL Strengths
• PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• MySQL Strengths
• MySQL Weaknesses
• Application Types
• About EnterpriseDB

22. MySQL Strengths
• Integrated Replication
– Master-Slave Replication
• Scale-Out Implementations
• Offload Reporting
• Geographic Data Distribution
– MySQL Cluster
• Horizontal Scalability

23. MySQL Strengths (cont.)
• Performance
– Low overhead MyISAM storage engine for read
mostly applications
– Memory storage engine for frequently accessed
tables
– Query Cache for frequently used statements

24. MySQL Strengths (cont.)
• Multiple Storage Engines
– Native Storage Engines
• MyISAM
• Merge
• Memory
• Federated
– Partner Developed Storage Engines
• InnoDB
• solidDB
• Infobright

25. MySQL Strengths (cont.)
• Strong Corporate Backing
• Corporate Platinum Partners

26. MySQL Strengths (cont.)
• Popularity
– Independent Software Vendor Support
– Availability of experienced resources
– Easily accessible information from various sources
such as whitepapers, blogs, and books

27. Agenda
• Open Source Database Trends
• PostgreSQL Strengths
• PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• MySQL Strengths
• MySQL Weaknesses
• Application Types
• About EnterpriseDB

28. MySQL Weaknesses
• Metadata uses MyISAM
– Transactions involving the system
catalog are not ACID compliant
– A server crash can corrupt the
system catalog

29. MySQL Weaknesses (cont.)
• Immature security model
– No pluggable authentication
module preventing centrally
managed accounts
– No support for roles resulting in
difficulty in maintaining privileges
for many users

30. MySQL Weaknesses (cont.)
• Immature server side programming model
– Stored procedures are not cacheable
– All tables used in the procedure or trigger are
pre-locked
– All cursors are materialized
– Only supports SQL

31. MySQL Weaknesses (cont.)
• Scalability Problems
– Difficulty with increases
in concurrency
– Difficulty with an increase
in the number of cores in
the server

32. MySQL Weaknesses (cont.)
• “Closed” Open Source Community
– The community is not contributing to the MySQL
server code base
• It is currently very hard to contribute code and ideas
– There are not many MySQL developers that are also
using MySQL
– Developers outside of MySQL do not have commit
rights
– There are no new 'innovative' features in 5.1 from
real life applications

33. Agenda
• Open Source Database Trends
• PostgreSQL Strengths
• PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• MySQL Strengths
• MySQL Weaknesses
• Application Types
• About EnterpriseDB

34. Application Types
• MySQL
– Web 1.0 Type Applications
• The MyISAM storage engine is ideal for online catalog
functionality
• Dynamic data is centered around an individual user such
as user profiles and shopping carts

35. Application Types
• MySQL
– Reporting and Data Warehousing
• The pluggable storage engine facility
allows for enhanced business
intelligence functionality
– Infobright
• The MyISAM storage engine has very
low overhead for read intensive
applications

36. Application Types
• MySQL
– Commercial and Open Source Applications
• MySQL is the primary database for many of the popular
open source projects
• Many commercial applications include MySQL in the
demonstration versions

37. Application Types (cont.)
• PostgreSQL
– Web 2.0 Type Applications
• The use of a distributed memory cache offloads many of
the queries from the database resulting in a heavy
transactional load
• The dynamic data such
as forum posts and wikis
are commonly being
viewed by users while
updates are occurring

38. Application Types (cont.)
• PostgreSQL
– Operational Data Stores
• The data is constantly changing
while reports executing
– Leverages the Multi Version
Concurrency Control feature
• Multiple users running reports
simultaneously requiring a scalable
database

39. Application Types (cont.)
• PostgreSQL
– New Application Development
• The numerous procedural languages allows developers
to leverage existing knowledge
• Transactional DDL is
almost a requirement in a
Ruby environment
• Debugging server side
code speeds the
development process

40. Agenda
• Open Source Database Trends
• PostgreSQL Strengths
• PostgreSQL Weaknesses
• MySQL Strengths
• MySQL Weaknesses
• Application Types
• About EnterpriseDB

41. EnterpriseDB Company Facts
• Award-winning enterprise open
source database company
• World’s largest concentration of
PostgreSQL expertise including
several core team members
Best Database Award
2005, 2006 & 2007
• Founded in March 2004
• Headquartered in Edison, NJ and Top 100 Technology
offices in 6 countries. Companies
• Over 250 customers including: Sony,
2006 “Ones to Watch”
FTD, TDAmeritrade, British Telecom
• 65 partners including: Red Hat, Sun,
IBM, Cognos, Compiere

42. Postgres Plus
Postgres Plus Advanced
Server offers additional
features including Oracle
compatibility
Postgres Plus is fully open
source and contains the
PostgreSQL project along
with additional components

43. Sample Customer Case Studies
Oracle-based Custom Applications
• Sony replaced Oracle for on-line games, user forums, back-office
Oracle-based ISV
• Tomax, retail industry ISV, replaced Oracle as default database
MySQL upgrade for Custom Applications
• Vonage scaled applications from MySQL to EnterpriseDB
SQL Server upgrade by 3rd party ISV
• Replaced SQL Server as embedded mammography database
Oracle-based Business Intelligence
• Running Oracle Reports on EnterpriseDB; saved 80%

44. Contact Information
Jim Mlodgenski
VP, Technical Services, EnterpriseDB
jim@enterprisedb.com

45. Thank you.