Enterprises taking the path of modernizing their IT infrastructure and using data to gain insights need the flexibility to handle hybrid environments distributed on local legacy systems both in the cloud and at the edge.

The open-source relational database management system Postgres can accelerate business innovation by being the database that works anywhere and being compatible with the latest in IT infrastructure, according to Marc Linster (pictured), chief technology officer of EnterpriseDB Corp., a privately held provider of software and services based on Postgres and a noted contributor to PostgreSQL.

“If you want to drive agile business transformation, you go Postgres because you don’t have to decide today where it’s going to run,” he said. “You’re not locking into a vendor; you’re not locking into a limited support system. You can run this thing anywhere.”

Linster spoke with John Walls, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during Postgres Vision 2021. They discussed how Postgres contributes to business innovation, how it handles security and the roadmap for changes over the coming months. (* Disclosure below.)

The ‘workhorse’ for microservice transformation

Despite its long history, dating back to the 1970s with Ingres, Postgres fits perfectly with container technology that is at the heart of modern IT infrastructures. It is now the number one database for containers and, after Nginx, is the second most deployed software in this environment, according to Linster.

“It’s really become the workhorse of the whole microservice transformation,” he said. “It has a very small footprint; it has a lot of interesting features like GIS, document processing, now graph capabilities, common table expressions, all those things that are really cool for developers.”

To further promote business innovation, Postgres continues to make speed one of its priorities. In the past couple of years, its performance has increased by more than 50%, and this kind of scalability remains the focus, according to Linster.

Another goal is to lead the implementation of SQL standards. For many years now, Postgres has been coming out with a new version on an annual basis. It also intends to bring more innovative features, such as making document storing, graphs and the ingestion of large time series even better.

“But one thing that I can say is, because Postgres is a pure open-source project, there’s not a hard roadmap, like where it is going to go,” he said. “Where it is going to go is always driven by what people want to have.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Postgres Vision 2021. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Postgres Vision event. Neither EnterpriseDB Corp., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE