The success of Linux in driving down costs in the enterprise while providing the same or better features and quality than proprietary operating systems is a case study for change. The compelling results from this transformation have led to further adoption of open source components in the enterprise stack, such as JBoss middleware and Apache web server. Now enterprises are looking to extend these results to the most sensitive and arguably the most expensive component of their software infrastructure—the database. This momentum is contributing to a sea change among Global 1000 companies shifting to the open source database Postgres.

Commercial database companies like Oracle are helping drive Postgres adoption too. That company’s high costs and unyielding licensing policies, for example, don’t win many friends from its customer base. Then there was the Great Recession, which continues to encourage companies to look for ways to cut costs. And many have discovered that Postgres can cost 80 to 90 percent less than their traditional databases while providing the high quality and features they currently enjoy.

But high costs and high quality alternatives don’t tell the whole story of why companies are increasing their adoption of the open source database Postgres. What hasn’t received as much attention is how the quality of the code and recent feature developments have strengthened the value proposition of Postgres for the enterprise.

From Bit Player to Top Billing

For years Postgres played the role of a dependable character actor in support of the leading roles played by commercial databases. Traditionally known as a database that ‘just works’, it lagged many features that enterprises required as the database industry was taking shape and adoption was on the rise.

In just the past few years, however, the Postgres community, a stable and principled group of individuals working cooperatively to govern the Postgres project over many years, has propelled Postgres forward significantly to increase its relevance to larger enterprises. From a feature and capability standpoint, Postgres started to really break out with the release of version 9.0 in September 2010. Clockwork releases followed with 9.1 in September of 2011 and 9.2 in September of 2012. Version 9.3 is currently in Beta and looks to be released with equal precision.

Technology Steps Forward

It’s important to note some of the ways Postgres has advanced and why they’re of value. Some of the key features and capabilities added to Postgres in recent releases include:

1. Streaming replication – A top enterprise user demand, this feature ensures that auxiliary servers can be used for disaster recovery and read scalability. Building in native binary replication satisfies a popular request by enterprises to quickly and reliably keep entire master databases copied to secondary servers in near real time. Streaming replication makes possible enterprise-class disaster recovery configurations, read scalable clusters, and realistic development and test environments.

2. Unlogged tables – Online systems produce significant amounts of data, but not every bit of data needs preserving in the event of a failure. And, holding all the data is a drag on performance. With the ability to create unlogged tables, Postgres users can boost performance by choosing ahead of time the data to save or jettison should their system fail.

3. Improved scalability – The computing capacity of the standard commodity server has soared in recent years along with the explosion of data generated and processed for every transaction. As a result, the performance capacity of Postgres had to expand. Community members developed multiple enhancements to improve processor utilization up to 64 cores.

4. Support for new programming models – For Postgres to expand into new areas of the enterprise large and small, the database had to support new data types, programming models and database features. Web apps, for example, need databases that can support a range of new data types, like JSON and key-value pairs. In addition, the recent addition of support for Google’s PL/V8 (a PostgreSQL procedural language for JavaScript) is enabling developers to use PostgreSQL to write more and more NoSQL-like applications.

5. Expanded management tools – Postgres has expanded in large enterprises to encompass hundreds more instances of the database. With better management tools and easier maintenance interfaces, DBAs can manage more databases, reducing personnel costs and improving the efficiency of data management in organizations. The Postgres community and commercial companies have created enterprise-class tools for general database management, monitoring, replication (single and multi-master), SQL Injection attack prevention, bulk data loading, security, tuning, and migration, among other uses.

With each new release, Postgres has made significant strides toward achieving parity with traditional proprietary databases for most applications. And end users have taken note. A recent survey of Postgres users released by EnterpriseDB in June 2013 found 40 percent of users had deployed PostgreSQL for mission critical applications. Postgres is now starring in leading roles for enterprises all across the globe with impressive results.

And it’s clear the trend is gaining momentum. Downloads and user numbers are also climbing. The same research, conducted by TechValidate for EnterpriseDB, found 24 percent of users deployed Postgres for the first time in 2012, compared to 14 percent in 2011 and 15 percent in 2010, demonstrating the growth in use of Postgres. But, while market forces have certainly influenced the accelerating uptake of Postgres, it’s important to also remember that Postgres has racked up some significant technical achievements.

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