9.1 beta next week, please blog/talk it up

PostgreSQL advocates:

Version 9.1 beta is coming out in slightly more than one week (currently scheduled for May 3). We'd really like to get people excited about it and about trying and testing it. This version is full of new major features. As such, I'd like as many of our community as possible to blog about the beta next week, as well as warming up your press contacts.

(1) PostgreSQL is still releasing a new major verison *every* year, as we have for the past 7 years.

(2) This new version contains more new major features than any of the 3 versions before it. Compare this to other DBMSes, who are mostly doing stability releases.

(3) This version contains several features which PostgreSQL is the very first DBMS to have, open source or proprietary.

We want to remind people that it's not just "noSQL" databases which can be innovative and improve rapidly. Not only do we have the stability, we have the innovation too.

The theme for this release is "Features, Innovation, Extensibility".

Some notes on the major features are below. However, if you want to write about other features you're exited about which aren't on the list below, you're very welcome to.

Features
Synchronous Replication
allow you to create synchronous standby databases to prevent data loss
includes "transaction-controlled synchronous commit", a PostgreSQL innovation
Per-column collations
allows true multilingual databases, where each column can be a separate language
Unlogged Tables
permits high-speed writes for ephemeral data like session tables

Innovation
K-Nearest-Neighbor Indexing
permits doing an indexed search of "what's near me".
expected to power a whole new generation of spatial applications
Microsoft is working on this, but we're releasing before them.
Serializable Snapshot Isolation
Supports true serializability among complex concurrent business transactions,
preventing race conditions and deadlocks.
Writeable Common Table Expressions
allows executing recursive updates and other data changes in one SQL statement
which previously would have taken a whole script
more powerful than CTEs implemented by other DBMSes
SE-Postgres
PostgreSQL is the only database which offers full integration
with SELinux secure data frameworks. Military-grade security
for your database.

Extensibility
Extensions & PGXN
You've been able to create plugins for PostgreSQL for a decade.
Now you can manage them easily, and utilize an online network of extensions
SQL/MED
Attach other data sources to PostgreSQL and use them like tables:
files, other databases, the process table, streams.
Use postgreSQL as the integrator for all of the data in your network

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com
San Francisco