Re: Understanding PostgreSQL Storage Engines

Pavel Stehule wrote:
> 2010/10/8 Carlos Mennens <carlos(dot)mennens(at)gmail(dot)com>:
>> I know that MySQL uses MyISAM storage engine by default... what
>> storage engine does PostgreSQL use by default ...
>
> PostgreSQL supports and uses just only one storage engine - PostgreSQL.

That said, ISTM one of Postgres's bigger strengths commercially seems
to be that vendors can reasonably easily plug in different storage engines.

Isn't the biggest SQL database in the world basically postgres using a
non-default different storage engine[note 1 below]? Heck, companies have
even made FPGA/hardware-accelerated storage engines for postgres[2].
Bigger IT companies than Oracle have sold PostgreSQL using
different storage engines[3].

Couldn't one almost say that one of the big differences between
MySQL and Postgres is that MySQL only offers a couple storage
engines, while Postgres has many vendors offering engines?

[ 1/2 :-) ]

Ron

[1] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9087918/Size_matters_Yahoo_claims_2_petabyte_database_is_world_s_biggest_busiest
"Yahoo brought the database in-house and continued to enhance
it, including tighter data compression, more parallel data
processing and more optimized queries. The top layer remains PostgreSQL"

[2] http://www.dbms2.com/2007/09/27/the-netezza-developer-network/
"My understanding is that they started with PostgreSQL and then
rewrote the back-end to embed in the FPGA. Query processing on
a SPU is split between the general purpose CPU and the FPGA,
with the latter mostly responsible for restricting rows and
projecting columns."

[3] http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/MAG/vol40-1/paper15.pdf
"Fujitsu loaded the storage management mechanism of Symfoware
Server into PostgreSQL. "