PostgreSQL started life as Ingres in the 1970s, a relational database platform developed at the University of California at Berkley (UCB), which gave birth to numerous commercial database applications such as Sybase.
In the mid-1980s, UCB started the Postgres (Post Ingres) project looking specifically at object relational technologies. Structured query language (SQL) wasn’t introduced to the project until 1995. The following year, developers outside of academia took up the mantle, developing new features and renaming the system PostgreSQL.
Since then, it has developed a sound reputation for stability, innovation and scalability, thanks to the continual innovation provided by its global developer community and key commercial sponsor base including Fujitsu.
PostgreSQL is most often compared to proprietary platforms such as Oracle DB, DB2, and SQL Server. This is because it contains comparable enterprise-class features such as:
- replication
- partitioning
- NoSQL data types, such as JSON
- views
- stored procedures
- indexes
- triggers
- user-defined data types, and
- ACID compliance.
Other key attributes include savepoints, tablespaces and point-in-time recovery to provide a powerful development environment.
Similar to some proprietary databases, PostgreSQL uses a multiple row data storage strategy, called MVCC, for extended scalability and responsiveness in high-volume environments with high concurrent loads.
This range of features, combined with its low-cost structure, makes it the perfect platform to deploy whether your environment is an embedded web-based database for a tech startup, or an extremely large enterprise environment requiring big data consumption.
As an open source platform, PostgreSQL in its basic form is available without license fees. Should your application be business critical, you may want to seek additional features, service, and support from a PostgreSQL specialist partner such as Fujitsu.
Fujitsu provides 24/7 support and services, DBA and developer training, and our own enhanced version of PostgreSQL - Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres.
