It usually takes more time than we think it will for that promise to catch up.  And so it is with cloud computing.

I remember first hearing about the promise of cloud computing back in 2007 while I was running a sales team for Red Hat.  It sounded good.  It sounded smart.  It sounded like a lot of work.

Fast forward five years, and there is still a long road ahead to get to where we can be with cloud computing, but we did take a very significant step forward today.  EnterpriseDB announced the availability of Postgres Plus Cloud Database.  I’d argue this is the first real enterprise-class relational database built for the cloud.

Now, wait a second.  Some of you will remind me that there are other databases in the cloud.  That’s true.  Amazon RDS runs both Oracle SE1 and Oracle’s MySQL.  There are also Amazon Machine Images for DB2, Sybase, etc.  And, of course, there’s Microsoft’s SQL Azure.

But, while they’re in the cloud, they weren’t truly built for the cloud.

Postgres Plus Cloud Database was built for the cloud.

With features such as:

• Fully ACID compliant relational database service
• Point-and-click simple setup & management with web-based interface
• Automatic scaling, load balancing and failover
• Automated online backup and point-in-time recovery
• Database Cloning
• Oracle database compatibility

And, with partners like HP, Red Hat, Engine Yard, Cloudbees and OpenStack behind us, we can see the shift toward Postgres in the cloud with Postgres Plus Cloud Database.

It’s changing the landscape of cloud computing, a step at a time, and bringing the reality of cloud computing closer to its promise.

Try it now, here!

Whether it’s ‘single-vendor’ strategy to flexibility and back again (welcome to Oracle’s ‘buy it all from us’ stack) or virtualization (mainframe to desktop back to enterprise servers), what’s old is new again.

Well, let me be the first to re-introduce you to PostgreSQL!

PostgreSQL (also known as Postgres) is more than 25 years old—created by Michael Stonebraker in 1985 after he made the Ingres database proprietary, hence the name origin:  Post-Ingres.

PostgreSQL was built with the same ‘guts’ as Oracle database, IBM’s DB2 and Sybase.  A true ACID compliant relational database, it’s meant to handle big transactional applications.

Alas, PostgreSQL never really took off the way many expected.  Database, by its nature, is ‘sticky’, and Oracle and IBM were gobbling up the market, which now stands at some $28 Billion per year.

Not only did ‘the big guys’ take the expensive end of the market, MySQL came along in the 90’s and took the ‘low end’ web application market—typically non-paying users that were building the next generation of web applications.  PostgreSQL had nowhere to fit:  until now.

Enter the PostgreSQL Renaissance:  Cloud Computing

You may think that you can just take your database and ‘run it in the cloud’, right?  Wrong.  It doesn’t work that way.  In fact, that’d be a ‘database in the cloud, and what enterprises need is a database for the cloud, with features such as:

1. Little-to-no cost barrier to entry:  ELIMINATE Oracle, DB2, Informix, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server
2. Familiar to developers and DBAs:  ELIMINATE NewSQL alternatives (they may have a piece of the market at some point)
3. Can handle read/write, transaction-intensive applications:  ELIMINATE MySQL (and those looking to leverage it, like Xeround), MongoDB and other NoSQL alternatives (not to say they don’t have a need to fill, it’s not this need)
4. Muti-platform:  ELIMINATE VMware’s Data Director (built on PostgreSQL, which is great, but limited to VMware’s platform)

PostgreSQL and EnterpriseDB fulfill all of these needs.

Because it’s open source, there are free versions you can download, and even certified, supported and ‘cloudified’ versions, like our Postgres Plus Cloud Database, that are  inexpensive (as inexpensive as Amazon RDS), because we pass our open source cost savings on to the customer.

While PostgreSQL isn’t always ‘top of mind’, it’s considered the 3^rd most distributed database in the world, and it ships with virtually every Linux distribution worldwide.

With Postgres Plus Cloud Database, EnterpriseDB has significantly enhanced the community version to create the first truly elastic enterprise Database as a Service (DBaaS). With Postgres Plus Cloud Database, setting up your database cluster is a breeze.  You have many automated DBA tasks, along with real auto-elasticity (think elastic waist band versus belt loops).  And, with it’s 7th generation of Oracle compatibility, you can now migrate your physical Oracle databases to the cloud on Postgres Plus Cloud Database.

What’s more, the PostgreSQL community has worked hard (and successfully) to improve PostgreSQL’s performance for web applications.  So, anyone who says PostgreSQL can’t be the DBaaS for web applications needs to wake up (Skype, Hi5, Best Buy, urbandictionary.com).

Postgres Plus Cloud Database can be integrated with several cloud platforms, including Amazon, OpenShift, Eucalyptus, OpenStack, GoGrid and others—providing companies with infinite flexibility.

Other platforms are also choosing PostgreSQL as their DBaaS:  salesforce.com’s Heroku platform, EngineYard and VMware (with Cloud Foundry and Data Director) just to name a few.

So, you see, PostgreSQL is back,  as the cloud database.  It’s the new Black!

To keep their profits up, Oracle does certain things that we’ve become used to, as well—technology lock-in, renewal audits, price increases.  The tide is starting to turn, though.  More and more customers are realizing that they’re fed up with Oracle’s tactics that keep them locked in and paying a premium, and it’s time to try something new.

Okay, so is the ‘status quo’ becoming detrimental?  Let’s look at what you’ve been dealing with:

• Oracle injects enhancements to their database with things like RAC, partitioning, etc. that can be beneficial in certain narrow use cases but come with terrible side-effects, such as tighter lock-in and huge license premiums.
• Prices haven’t changed much over the years (Moore’s law?  Moore’s missing!), which is astonishing.  In the last ten years, hardware costs have decreased about 80%, yet the cost of Oracle database is almost flat.
• Most importantly, while we know Oracle’s sales and lock-in tactics are bad, it’s is much easier to just ignore it.

The only upside to staying with Oracle is the product’s pretty good.  The fact is, there are alternatives, and I’m not talking about ‘fry it up enough and put sauce all over it so it resembles meat’ alternatives.  There are real, mature, enterprise-class alternatives to Oracle, such as Postgres Plus from EnterpriseDB.

PostgreSQL has been around for over 25 years.  In fact, the database was created from the same IBM whitepaper as Oracle’s database—they’re very similar, natively.

Now, with the launch of Postgres Plus Advanced Server 9.0, EnterpriseDB will also have its 7^th generation of Oracle compatibility built into PostgreSQL.  What this means is you now have an easy way to move from Oracle for many of your applications.

What’s more, with our Oracle Migration Program, we can help you systematically assess the best database candidates to migrate, and we can even help you with the migration process.  It’s easier now to move away from Oracle than ever before.

You can’t ignore the problem anymore and keep things status quo.  Demand a better way to use your IT budget!

You are not alone. A recent article in SearchOracle.com cited a study by Gabriel Consulting Group, which found that almost 40% of Oracle Database users said they were evaluating alternatives to Oracle DB or were definitely migrating off the platform. Are you one of the 40% percent trying to decide if moving from Oracle is right for you? If so, follow these quick steps to find out, and remember to use these steps to help negotiate a better price for the Orcale databases you decide to keep using.

Step 1: Evaluate. Download Postgres Plus Advanced Server and within 10-15 minutes you will be up and running. It doesn’t take days, weeks or months to see the benefits.

• Call your Oracle Sales Rep and report the results

Step 2: Select – Move – Migrate: Get an Oracle Migration Assessment. Right away, EnterpriseDB’s Oracle Migration Assessment will let you know how easy it will be to make the switch, which in most cases will be a slam dunk to get done quickly.  Then, begin migrating your applications.  EnterpriseDB’s graphical Oracle Migration toolkit makes it easy to transfer your Oracle database to Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

• Call your Oracle Sales Rep and report the results

Step 3: Replicate. The last step is to simply replicate step two for additional new applications you want to develop and other existing Oracle databases you want to move to Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

• Call your Oracle Sales Rep and report the results

So there you have it in three simple steps. Isn’t about time you made the switch? Looking forward to hearing from you.  Call 1-781-357-3390 or visit enterprisedb.com

Let me know what your thoughts are regarding Oracle’s actions, and what you think customers will do.

Hi Dan,  I read your blog this morning, and it was full of very good, useful information. I want to clarify a few things, and also expand on some of your thoughts so that your readers have a clearer understanding of what we do, how we do it, and when and why it makes sense for them to consider an alternative.

First and foremost, EnterpriseDB is the enterprise PostgreSQL company.  Our business today is far broader than Oracle compatibility. Many of our customers are long-time PostgreSQL users who are expanding their PostgreSQL footprint with our help and support.  While that often comes at the expense of Oracle, the focus is on expansion of use more than Oracle replacements or migrations.

With that said, we continue to grow our business very successfully with Oracle migrations.  Our Oracle compatibility technology, now entering its 7th generation with the launch of Postgres Plus Advanced Server 9.0 this month, is but one of many important features in the database that make us a viable alternative to expensive proprietary RDBMSs. And, because Postgres Plus Advanced Server is built on PostgreSQL, we can provide this enterprise-class database for about one-fifth the cost of other proprietary databases.

Your blog does raise a great question that Oracle in pushing on customers: which investment and partnership should a customer protect, their software vendor (Oracle) or their hardware supplier (HP)?  Oracle pricing practices and customer control have frustrated many who turn to us as an alternative.  However, with the acquisition of Sun and their entry into hardware it is becoming increasingly clear that Oracle is applying many of the same tough business tactics to grow their Sun server business.  Dumping support for Itanium is a perfect proof point.  This is changing the way customers will respond to Oracle dominance even further and will probably lead them to find alternatives like EnterpriseDB.  The fact that we have Oracle compatibility just makes it that much easier and less risky for customers to consider a migration.

Frankly, I don’t think it will end there…just look at their position with Linux and in particular the lack of support for RHEL 6 and now 6.1, and their increased push for Oracle Linux to their customers.  Anyone who thinks they are not trying to own the whole stack is not watching closely enough.

We are a solution for customers meant to augment their use of Oracle, where Oracle isn’t necessary.  We do that in a way that gives the customer a considered, predictable and safe migration path from Oracle to Postgres Plus Advanced Server, and these are the steps we take:

- Identify the best migration candidates.  Our Oracle Migration Assessment is a tool that we use to identify the best candidate applications for migration.  The best candidates are typically ‘home-grown’ applications, applications using Java or C (Pro*C or OCI) or ODBC.  Once we analyze the application, we score it (1-10, with 10 being the easiest to migrate), and create a comprehensive report for the customer that explains what our next steps will be.

- Create a plan and begin migration.  Our Oracle Migration Factory is where we can do the application migration remotely for our customers.  We scope each engagement based on the number of databases we migrate and what their scores were in the Oracle Migration Assessment.  This is where, in your article you referred to the work-arounds when there isn’t compatibility, we fix any gaps in compatibility for certain applications, and then deliver the migrated application to the customer.

- Repeat.  Just like we saw with Unix to Linux migration over the last decade, it’s a process that customers will get comfortable with, and as their comfort grows they will migrate more.  Linux was first used to replace Unix for file and print servers and web servers.  Then, customers replaced database servers.  As comfort grew, they moved into the datacenter and mission critical workloads.  This same migration evolution is happening with database.  Customers typically start with new applications, then migrate non-mission critical, departmental applications.  As their confidence grows, they migrate more.

You see Dan, it’s not just having Oracle compatibility.  It’s giving the customer a real path to go from point A to point B.  We provide them that path, and now we are proud to be partnering with HP to provide HP’s customers that path.  Finally, have you noticed over the last decade the price of hardware (even big hardware) has decreased basically at a Moore’s law pace?  I’d ask your readers how much their Oracle costs have decreased over the last ten years–especially the last few as we’ve navigated through a financial crisis not seen in 70 years.  There are alternatives, and we are enthusiastic about our future.

The survey got a fair amount of press coverage in well known publications such as ReadWriteWeb, CNET and GigaOm to name a few, which was nice for us to see. We did however get at least one not-so-positive story written.  In the writer’s opinion, apparently, the questions were too leading and the survey wasn’t “a real attempt to learn something about how people thought and felt about the future of Java”.  Well, I guess if the last question asks, Who would you like to see in a dunk tank?, you can probably assume it’s not a scientific survey.

I think the real problem this analyst had with our survey was that he may, like everyone else, already feel like he knew the answers, and therefore the outcome.  Many people are worried about the future of the latest open source projects to come under the control of Oracle, and as the last half-year has shown, there’s good reason to be concerned.

One of our partners, Jaspersoft, conducted a similar survey (April 2010) five months before EnterpriseDB’s (September 2010), and their survey indicated that the respondents were relatively optimistic about Oracle’s intentions around MySQL and Java.  Fast forward to present-day, Brian Gentile, Jaspersoft’s CEO was interviewed this week in Australia, and was quoted as saying it’s a worry how the software giant is treating open source projects.  Well….maybe our survey was on to something!

Actually, there’s a logical reason for Gentile’s comment.  Since the Jaspersoft survey was conducted, Oracle’s sued Google over Java IP, and the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) resigned as a member of the Java Community.  That’s not to mention changes brewing with MySQL around pricing and IP.

So, was our survey tilted?  No, the choices were objective. Did our survey uncover anything new?  Not really. Most of us weren’t surprised by the responses.  And you know what?  Maybe that’s the story that should be written.

-    Postgres Plus Advanced Server 9.0—coming this summer, our flagship product will include updated features from PostgreSQL 9.0, including streaming replication and hot standby, along with our 7th generation of Oracle compatibility features and cloud cache.
-    New Build for HP-UX—this spring EnterpriseDB will have completed a build for HP-UX, and while the big winner may be the Asia market, there are customers all over the world happily running their database servers on HP’s bigger machines, and they, too, are looking for Oracle alternatives.
-    Of course, we have a few more key components coming to the market this year that we’ve yet to announce.  Stay tuned!

We’re very excited about our growth around the world, and while the U.S. will continue to grow and drive much of our business, the gap is rapidly closing.

Half the battle is having the right mix of talent to get the job done right.  That’s not so different than what Heroes was trying to do to protect those with ‘powers’.  The Company paired ‘one of us with one of them’, and it worked.

It’s taken us time, but we’re there now, which is just awesome.  Technologists that have been with EnterpriseDB from the beginning (or close to it), know how to successfully engage with the PostgreSQL community to ensure a healthy relationship with the project.  Further, their skills around Oracle compatibility—now in its 6^th generation—is unmatched anywhere in the world.  It’s as important to know what not to focus on with Oracle compatibility, and you only learn that with time.

On the flip side, over the last couple years, we’ve brought in talent from Red Hat, Sun and MySQL who understand the concept that, in most instances, good technology will not sell itself.  It’s critical to understand what your value is, and where it fits into a customer’s priorities.  Is it cost savings?  Is it avoiding vendor lock-in?  Is it faster innovation?

Because we realize how important it is to have the right blend of superior technologists and business leaders, EnterpriseDB has taken a more prominent role in sponsoring and managing many PostgreSQL developer conferences around the world.  Last week, we had an incredibly successful PG West conference in San Francisco.  By combining sponsorships from companies like IBM, Red Hat & Jaspersoft with a keynote by Sun Microsystems founder Scott McNealy and dozens of sessions from the world’s best PostgreSQL developers, along with moving the event to a nice venue (Sir Francis Drake hotel), we are taking the ‘us and them’ theme to the next level for the betterment of PostgreSQL and its users.

So, like Heroes, EnterpriseDB finds the most success matching ‘one of us with one of them’ as we expand our footprint into large enterprise deals and strategic partnerships with the likes of Korea Telecom, NTT and Netezza.  It’s one of us, and one of them (we just don’t agree on who has the ‘powers’!).

This past week, I spent time in San Antonio at Rackspace’s leadership summit.  We’re a new partner of Rackspace’s, and we’re very excited about several opportunities we have to enhance that relationship.

What became apparent to me in discussions with the ‘Rackers’ and their partners though, is that there still are some folks out there that aren’t as familiar as we’d like them to be about PostgreSQL.

On the proprietary database side, people know Oracle.  On the open source database side, people know MySQL.  They’re the Coca-Cola and Diet Coke of the database market.

So, the question I get asked is where PostgreSQL fits in, and how do we differentiate ourselves from Oracle on one side and MySQL on the other side?  The easiest way for me to explain it is like this:

If Oracle and MySQL had a child, and that child got the best traits from each of them, it’d be PostgreSQL.

Like Oracle, PostgreSQL is a fully ACID compliant relational database that has the performance and reliability companies expect for their enterprise applications.  In fact, EnterpriseDB’s Postgres Plus includes Oracle compatibility technology that is in a league of its own with its ability to migrate applications away from Oracle.

Like MySQL, PostgreSQL is open source, and leverages the innovation of a large, bright open source community.  EnterpriseDB’s Postgres Plus Standard Server is completely open source, and freely available. These days, unlike MySQL, PostgreSQL is the only independent open source database project in the market.

If one wants the best of Oracle without the cost, and the best of MySQL without some of the transactional performance limitations, then PostgreSQL is the database for you.   PostgreSQL 9.0 was recently released by the community to rave reviews, and beyond traditional use, its openness makes it a perfect fit for virtualization and cloud deployments, too.

While PostgreSQL has been around for over 20 years, we like the notion of being the ‘new’ kid on the block, and we’re here to stay!

As the IT industry buckles in for what is sure to be a thrilling ride of mergers and acquisitions it may be prudent for enterprises to pause, take a deep breath (maybe cross our fingers), and consider how this imminent consolidation will affect us.

Whether you’re tied to one vendor for most of your IT infrastructure needs, or you think of your vendors purely as an SOA platform (provide me the ‘service’ I need, the way I need it) there are pros and cons to consider.  Consolidation is not a new phenomenon, but there are far more choices than ever before, including a host of open source projects that can be self-supported, data centers that can be physically or virtually located and hosted privately or publicly.  In other words, our data could be, more than ever, at the mercy of our IT vendors.

The single vendor strategy does give us “One Throat to Choke” and hardware and software integration and interoperability.  However, you could be stuck after you ‘choke the throat’ and still have unanswered support issues.  Further, one size usually does not fit all, so you may sacrifice some innovation, and vendor lock-in usually means no negotiation leverage.

If you use your vendors as a service, you can choose the best of breed technologies,  have negotiating leverage to lower prices, and there’s more likelihood of innovation and re-use of those ‘services’.  You do expose yourself to ‘soft costs’ that come with having a large portfolio of vendors (training, management, etc.), and you open yourself up to support issues with possible finger pointing between vendors.

So, what’s the best solution? Have a key vendor or two that you can rely on for many of your needs, but also have a formal strategy for secondary and emerging solutions.

At EnterpriseDB we hear from customers all the time that they need an alternative to Oracle, because they’re just too expensive and often functionality not even being used is over-deployed.  Sometimes, those inquiries come in too late, and the company is forced to renew huge support contracts unnecessarily.  We help them implement alternative solutions that provide needed flexibility and cost savings while sacrificing none of the enterprise-class functionality they require.  It’s important to have alternatives in place to ensure you don’t get into that situation in the first place, and if some of the speculated acquisitions become reality, you’ll be much better off if you plan now.