Re: PostgreSQL contra Oracle

On Mon, Oct 31, 2005 at 11:28:11AM -0800, Darcy Buskermolen wrote:
> On Monday 31 October 2005 07:22, Kaare Rasmussen wrote:
> > While we're talking Oracle... :-)
> >
> > I attended an Oracle sales talk last week. Well, it was labeled "Technical
> > information", but that's another story.
> >
> > I'd like to ask if PostgreSQL has some of the features being promoted.
> >
> > Log miner. A tool that walks the Undo logs an returns statements to update
> > with old data. Could be useful for recovering specific table data, Data
> > Mining etc.
> > In the PostgreSQL world, it couldn't be dificult to do the same with WAL,
> > or?
> >
> > Locator. As I recall, it is a GIS app, written into Oracle. Someone may
> > know more?
>
> If it's GIS then postgis (http://www.postgis.org) is probably the closest
> thing we (being the PostgreSQL community, not the project itself) have to it.
>
You would be surprised what you can do with maps and the built in geometric
types.

> >
> > Feature index. Interesting feature from Virage. It indexes LOBs, say a
> > picture or an videostream. Makes it possible to find closest match.
>
> This sounds like a form of meta data. I would think it requires some sort of
> middleware to do effectively. But it's not outside of the realm of being
> feasible.
>
>
This is possible by writing a GiST or other index on the data.
> >
> > Fine Grain Audit. Some rules based autit mechanism where you can log e.g.
> > all access to specific data.
> >
> > Information Life Cycle Management. A built-in way to degrade data
> > importance. Maybe you want to move old rows onto cheaper disks, compress
> > them or so.
>
> I would think this would be easy to implement with the use of triggers,
> tablespaces, partitioning / constraint exclusion and some hefty business
> logic rules.
>

The thing to remember is that most things are perfectly and in some cases
easily feasible in postgres because it is extensible. Need a data type?
Add a new one. Need to do special processing for a where clause or
a row set? Write a procedure. There is very little you cannot do unless
you run into wanting extra SQL syntax for it. On the other hand, I've
seen some, ahum, misguided extensions as well.

Elein
============================================================
elein(at)varlena(dot)com Varlena, LLC www.varlena.com

PostgreSQL Consulting, Support & Training

PostgreSQL General Bits http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/
=============================================================
I have always depended on the [QA] of strangers.

> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>
> --
> Darcy Buskermolen
> Wavefire Technologies Corp.
>
> http://www.wavefire.com
> ph: 250.717.0200
> fx: 250.763.1759
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
>