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EnterpriseDB Gets a New CEO
2008-06-04 15:59:00
LewisC's An Expert's Guide To Oracle TechnologyLooks like I have a new boss. Actually, it looks like my boss's boss has a new boss. ;-)I'd like to personally welcome Ed Boyajian to EnterpriseDB. Looks like he has quite a bit of experience with OSS and monetizing software solutions. He's been an executive at Redhat for a long time. 6 years in his last position but in many other positions before that.We (EnterpriseDB employees) have known this was coming for a while now. I knew Andy and the board were looking when I was hired. I just now learned the name of the chosen, though. It's always interesting in a company when executive leadership changes hands.I like Andy (Astor, the ex-CEO) and I'm glad he's staying as the new executive VP of Business Development. I believe that is where his strength (i.e. past experience) lies.I don't like to touch too much on people or activities where I work. Makes me kind of uncomfortable discussing what is normally private stuff. This is newswo...

Wavemaker Provides EnterpriseDB Support
2008-05-29 15:13:00
EnterpriseDB News at BlogspotChris Keene, the CEO for Wavemaker just blogged that combining Wavemaker and EnterpriseDB just got easier. Wavemaker has a new version that has out of the box support for both Postgres and EnterpriseDB.I wrote a couple of weeks ago about my first day of Wavemaker training. I still haven't found time to start day two but now that Wavemaker supports EnterpriseDB, I'll probably redo day 1 using Advanced Server instead of MySQL. I could have done it before since it already supported Postgres and EnterpriseDB via a manual configuration. But now I'll want to see how easy it is with the automatic support.If you want a little bit more info on Wavemaker, I also posted about my first look with it.Wavemaker is an open source AJAX GUI builder for almost any relational database. You can get it, for free, here.Thanks,LewisC Technorati : database, enterprisedb, gui, open source, postgres, wavemaker
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Learn EDB: Basic Encryption
2008-05-27 15:33:00
LewisC's An Expert's Guide To Oracle TechnologyAn ITToolbox user recently asked a question on the EnterpriseDB discussion group, Oracle equilant UTL_I18N.STRING_TO_RAW IN ENTERPRISEDB.Basic ally, Sreenivas asked which functions in EnterpriseDB could be used to implement dbms_crypto, hex_to_raw, string_to_raw, etc. I believe he is using EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus Advanced Server which is the product that gives Oracle Compatibility. The short answer to his question is that right now, there are no compatibility functions for those. The long answer is that you can re-implement that functionality using native PG functionality.If you look at Sreenivas's message you can see how his existing code works. I posted a simple example in response which I am reposting below. The PG docs suggest that you use PGP based encryption rather than what they call raw encryption. I think it depends on exactly what you're doing, personally. Anyway, raw encryption was closer to what Sreenivas was doing so ...
More About: Encryption , Learn

Wavemaker Training Day 1
2008-05-15 15:17:00
LewisC's An Expert's Guide To Oracle TechnologyI mentioned the other day that I was playing with a new GUI builder from an EnterpriseDB partner, Wavemaker. Wavemaker, in addition to providing the software, provides some training that is downloadable from the web site.This training is a two day basics course in powerpoint format. I would guess that this is what they use for instructor led training and they just made this available to the public. Anyway, I decided to see how good the training was which in turn kind of tells me how easy wavemaker is to learn.Day 1 includes 8 powerpoint presentations:IntroductionWavemaker ArchitectureWavemaker InstallationWavemaker Studio OverviewPage Designer BasicsWavemaker Data ModelService ComponentsData WidgetsSeeing as how I was already making some simple pages with the tool, I blew through the intro, the architecture and installation. It's interesting stuff, though.I snagged a screenshot of the wavemaker runtime from the powerpoint presentatio...
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Bind Variables in Postgres Plus Advanced Server
2008-05-13 03:56:00
Bind variables are used to ease code maintenance and to save memory and processing on the server. When you save memory and processing power, you improve the overall performance of the server. The inner details of how this saves memory has been enumerated in other places on the web. This article is designed to help developers users bind variables when running queries against Postgres Plus Advanced Server .What are bind variables?The easiest way to think of a bind variable is to consider it just another variable. Instead of it being a variable to be used by your application (and whatever language you happen to be using), think of it as a variable to be used by SQL. Better yet, think of it as a parameter to be used by SQL.Why do you use parameters in your functions and procedures? Take a look at this very simple SPL procedure:PROCEDURE start_program ISBEGIN DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Hello World');END;Now, that procedure works just fine. When the program starts, it calls start_program and...
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DBMS_PIPE & DBMS_ALERT In EnterpriseDB
2008-05-08 14:59:00
LewisC's An Expert's Guide To Oracle TechnologyThe latest release of the EnterpriseDB database, Postgres Plus Advanced Server (AS) 8.3, includes additional Oracle compatibility features. Two of those new features are DBMS_PIPE and DBMS_ALERT. Old Oracle hands will recognize those two packages that are used for interprocess communication. This post is a quick tutorial on using these two features. If you've used them in Oracle, you would have no problem using them in AS.DBMS_ALERTDBMS_ALERT allows you to send an alert to any processes that are registered to hear (listen) that alert. The listening process can register to hear multiple alerts. When any alert comes that matches the listen list, the receiving process will take action. A process can block, i.e. freeze, while waiting for an alert or it can continue processing and periodically poll for alerts. This is accomplished via a timeout parameter.The first step in alerting is to register to hear an alert. This is done via the regi...

Calling a Packaged Procedure via .Net
2008-04-24 14:23:00
Someone recently posted a question in the Postgres Forums about how to call a package in Advanced Server. He also had a question about how to call a packaged procedure in a specific schema.Here is my reply to the question:You can't actually execute packages. You execute the procedures or functions in them. Here is some code to execute a procedure in a package. I am using public as the schema name. If you want to execute a procedure in a user's schema, just replace public with the user's name. using System;using System.Data;using EnterpriseDB.EDBClient;namespace ConsoleApplication2{ class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { EDBConnection conn = new EDBConnection( "Server=localhost;" + "Port=5444;" + "User Id=enterprisedb;" + "Password=enterprisedb;" + "Database=edb"); conn.Open(); EDBCommand cmd = new EDBCom...
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EDB Tip #4: Database Links in EDB
2008-04-23 15:47:00
LewisC's An Expert's Guide To Oracle TechnologyThis tip relates to the latest version of EnterpriseDB's Advanced Server (AS) product. This is the commercially licensed database that provides Oracle compatibility. I have spoken quite a bit about what that compatibility entails but the gist of it is that the compatibility is code compatibility. The latest version of AS offers quite a few new features that I will be writing about over time. Today I am writing about the Oracle compatible db links.To understand database links in Oracle, read my entry here on ittoolbox, Database Links : A Definition in Plain English. That entry will give you a good overview of what a link is and what Oracle does with links. This is a hugely useful feature. Pulling data from remote databases can be incredibly important to many applications.AS provides DDL syntax that is very close to Oracle syntax and DML syntax exactly like Oracle syntax. In addition, you can choose to create links from AS to Oracle or ...

Combined Forums for Postgres and EnterpriseDB Issues
2008-04-23 15:28:00
In the past, your basic support for postgres has been mail groups. I've never been a big fan of mail groups. You have to subscribe to the group and usually you get tons of stuff you don't really want. Worst of all, you either have to sort through it or filter it to a folder. I never seem to be able to keep up with the stuff I am interested in due to the clutter.EnterpriseDB has had forums for a while but recently combined the postgres and advanced server forums into a single location. GridSQL also has it's own forum. You can ask pretty much any question you might have. The forums are monitored by EnterpriseDB employees and there are also some very knowledgeable users out there.LewisCforums enterprisedb
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EnterpriseDB Open Sources GridSQL
2008-03-26 15:30:00
I wrote about GridSQL and EnterpriseDB a while back. EnterpriseDB bought GridSQL (from Mason who now works at EnterpriseDB) and has been working to improve it. Yesterday, they announced that they are open sourcing it.GridSQL is really for data warehousing but can be applied to some OLTP/reporting combination databases. What it does is take a query and spread it out to run in parallel against a set of cheap PCs. There is a controller machine, called a coordinator, that keeps track of what is running and where.Because there is a central point of failure (the coordinator), it is not a high availability solution. But, also because of the coordinator, you can hot swap, add or remove nodes while users are accessing the data. Very cool technology.LewisCgridsql enterprisedb
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Free Electronic Copy of My Book
2008-03-13 19:19:00
Someone pointed out to me that the publisher has made an electronic copy of my EnterpriseDB: The Definitive Reference book available as a PDF on their web site.I don't know how long they plan to leave this out there. EnterpriseDB: The Definitive Referencebook enterprisedb
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A New EnterpriseDB Webinar
2008-03-07 15:26:00
I'm doing a "Best Practices on Database Migration" webinar at ITToolbox.com March 12. I'll talk about ways to make your life easier when doing database migrations.LewisCoracle enterprisedb
More About: Oracle , Webinar

Open Source Data Integrator Apatar Announces Partnership with EnterpriseDB
2008-02-11 19:23:00
Apatar is a provider of open source software tools for the data integration market. Apatar provides data integration to the companies by offering provides support, training, and consulting services for its integration software solutions.Apatar provides connectivity to EnterpriseDB, Oracle , MS SQL, MySQL, Sybase, DB2, MS Access, PostgreSQL, XML, InstantDB, Paradox, BorlandJData Store, Csv, MS Excel, Qed, HSQL, Compiere ERP, SalesForce.Com, SugarCRM, Goldmine, any JDBC data sources and more.The free Community Edition is available for download and provides plenty of functionality out of the box. There is a also an Enterprise Edition that provides some additional features. You can compare features in the feature matrix."We are pleased to support EnterpriseDB's world-class database solutions as part of our integration practice," said Renat Khasanshyn, founder and CEO of Apatar, Inc. "In today's enterprises, most data integration projects never get built. The ROI (Return on Investment)...
More About: Open Source , Open , Source

EnterpriseDB CEO Named One of the ?Top Leaders in Open Source Business?
2008-02-05 21:22:00
EnterpriseDB's CEO, Andy Astor, was named one of 13 ?Top Leaders in Open Source Business ? by LinuxWorld Magazine. EnterpriseDB was also recently named one of the ?Top 20 Companies to Watch in 2008" by Linux Magazine.This is good news for open source and for people looking to save money on database license fees.EnterpriseDB sells the open source based Oracle compatible EnterpriseDB Advanced Server as well as a packaged Postgres implementation. EnterpriseDB also offers consulting and training.oracle enterprisedb

EnterpriseDB: The Definitive Reference for less than $25 USD
2008-01-23 01:41:00
If you've thought about buying the book, EnterpriseDB: The Definitive Reference , you should check out A1Books.com. As of right now, 1/22/08, it's going for $24.80 USD (Brand New).Shipping would depend on your location.LewisCoracle enterprisedb
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Any interest in a Central Florida EnterpriseDB User Group?
2008-01-15 17:20:00
I posted this question on my Postgres Blog. Send me a note if you would be interested.LewisCoracle enterprisedb
More About: Oracle , Florida , User , Interest , Central

Win a copy of my EnterpriseDB book
2008-01-10 00:29:00
I've been thinking long and hard about how I want to give away a few copies of my book. I will be at the SOUG meeting Thursday, Jan 24th here in Tampa. If you're in the area, stop by. I'm going to have a drawing for a couple of copies that night.That doesn't really help those people who aren't near by. So, I am going to ask 3 questions and the first two people to answer all three correctly will get a copy. They won't be hard to answer but the answers might require a little work. I will ask the questions and explain how you will need to respond. To get the questions, you need to follow me on twitter. You can find my twitter account in various places on the net, including in my blog at ITToolbox.com. You will need to be watching at 9am Eastern time, Jan 12, 2008. Follow and be watching for my questions. I will ask the questions and then explain what to do next.This contest is open to anyone. If you are outside the US and you win, we can discuss the best way to get yo...
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My Book Has Been Printed
2008-01-04 02:09:00
Well, it's taken over a year but it has finally arrived. I started writing the book back in Aug 2006. I finished in late Jan 2007 and the technical editor finished his work in March. Now, In Jan 2008, EnterpriseDB: The Definitive Reference is available. I'm glad I didn't wait for the movie. ;-)It's kind of ironic. Just this morning, I posted that I am working on my second book. My wife called me at work and told me two boxes of books had arrived. 2008 is turning out to be a good year. I'll have some additional news in the near future.Anyway, the book looks good. I've already found a few typos and grammar errors just skimming around. I like the font and the pages look really crisp. All in all, I have to say I am very happy that the book is out. Check out some photos:I think I want to give a couple away. Maybe some kind of contest for the blog readers. Any ideas of something fair? I am willing to pay shipping for a couple but that would only be here in the US. O...
More About: Oracle , Book

Compatibility Between EntepriseDB and Oracle
2007-12-25 21:13:00
Have you wondered what features are compatible between Oracle and EnterpriseDB? Have you wondered if EnterpriseDB is REALLY compatible with Oracle? EnterpriseDB has compiled a new document called the Oracle Compatibility Developer's Guide. You can download the Oracle Compatibility Developer's Guide for EntepriseDB 8.2 or the Oracle Compatibility Developer's Guide for 8.3 Beta.This new document should help answer one of the most common questions I get asked, i.e., what is compatible and what is not compatible between EnterpriseDB and Oracle. If you are interested in EnterpriseDB but haven't taken the plunge, check out this document. Speaking of compatibility, I plan to start a series of articles that directly compares a feature between Oracle and EntepriseDB (with mentions to pure PostgreSQL).LewisCoracle enterprisedb

EDB*Plus and EDB*Loader Emulate Oracle?s SQL*Plus and SQL*Loader: Enterpri
2007-11-18 18:22:00
EnterpriseDB Advanced Server?s enterprise-class, cross-platform developer and DBA console now includes EDB*Plus, a command-line terminal interface that emulates Oracle ?s SQL*Plus. Like SQL*Plus, EDB*Plus allows users to run SQL and PL/SQL commands interactively. Oracle users accustomed to SQL*Plus will find EDB*Plus immediately familiar. In addition, EnterpriseDB?s new EDB*Loader emulates Oracle?s SQL*Loader and provides even deeper compatibility.EnterpriseDB Advanced Server 8.3 adds several new features that enhance the database?s ability to run, unchanged, applications written for Oracle. For example, there are more than 20 new Oracle-compatible system views, Oracle-compatible packages now support comments, and ROWNUM can now be used in sub-queries and views. In addition, EnterpriseDB?s new bulk binding feature, which allows collections of SQL statements to be collected and run together to improve performance, further improves Oracle compatibility.Other updates to the new software...

Is EnterpriseDB Express Gone?
2007-10-31 03:25:00
I was at the EnterpriseDB web site recently and noticed that the downloads have changed a bit. I no longer see a download for EnterpriseDB Express . If you remember a while back, I had found an annoyance with the installation of the express version.Now you go right to the advance server download and get a messsage. You have downloaded EnterpriseDB Advanced Server. Currently, EnterpriseDB Advanced Server 8.2 requires a Product Key in order to use the software above 1 CPU, 1 GB of memory, and 6GB of data. This product key will be removed from future releases of EnterpriseDB Advanced Server.The message also provides a license key so that you can install the software. Kudos EnterpriseDB. I appreciate it. I'm not opposed to an express version. Actually, I think it makes a lot of sense. But before implementing it, the software should be able to limit itself.It looks like that's what they plan to do.I also noticed a new feature/offering. EnterpriseDB now offers a Developer Suppor...
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EnterpriseDB Wins One From MySQL
2007-10-03 14:57:00
Do you do GEO? If you do, you've probably at least heard of PostGIS, the Postgres GIS extension. PostGIS just gave EnterpriseDB a big win over its open source competition. FortiusOne leads the market towards the next generation of Web mapping. Its breakthrough Intelligent Mapping technologies offer rich information visualization on maps and unprecedented access to geographic data. FortiusOne innovations include: high-speed Web-based geographic analysis tools, a flexible and scalable Web services platform supporting the special needs of geographic data, and an innovative application of social networking techniques to geographic knowledge creation.FortiusOne's main product is GeoCommons. GeoCommons houses a large geospatial database with more than two billion attributes, 35,000 variables, and 1,500 datasets. As a fast-growing startup, FortiusOne required a low-cost, powerful database solution to run GeoCommons. Originally, FortiusOne selected MySQL; however, when FortiusOne was p...
More About: Mysql , Wins

EnterpriseDB Fall Webinar Series
2007-09-27 01:24:00
Sign up for Live Webinar s from EnterpriseDB. The December Data Warehouse one looks really good.October 4, 2007 9AM ET & 2PM ETTop 5 Ways to Supercharge Your DatabaseAbstract: - Join EnterpriseDB to learn 5 simple ways to supercharge your EnterpriseDB and Postgres databases to gain the best performance. From Dynatune? to auto-vacuuming, there are simple ways to optimize your database without sacrificing availability and reliabilitySpeaker: Jim Mlodgenski - Vice President, Worldwide Technical Services EnterpriseDBOctober 10, 2007 1PM ETLowering TCO While Raising Revenues for Business Intelligence ApplicationsAbstract: - Join EnterpriseDB and JasperSoft to learn how to implement a fully functional BI architecture based on open source technologies that addresses the paradox of lowering your customer?s TCO while improving professional services revenue.Speakers: Jose Morales - Vice President, Business Development, JasperSoft,Bill Doyle - Sr.Vice President, Business Development, Enterpris...
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EnterpriseDB Webinar: Building a Highly Available Infrastructure
2007-09-19 23:06:00
A new Webinar about EnterpriseDB (not from me). Building a Highly Available Infrastructure for Your Database and Application.It's next wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 9am and 2pm Eastern. I guess it repeats. It's an hour long.Here's the blurb from the email I received:What does an hour of downtime cost you? Analysts report that just one hour of downtime can cost businesses millions of dollars, and some never recover.What applications are mission critical today? In the past, only those applications that controlled finances were considered mission-critical. But, today, almost every application, from your e-commerce website to your email and calendaring system, are considered mission-critical and candidates for high-availability planning.While everyone agrees that downtime is caused by three major areas - people, processes and technology - every effort is being made to ensure that technology is never the cause.Join EnterpriseDB and Continuent experts as they show you how to impl...

Bob Zurek's Open Letter to the Wall Street Journal
2007-09-14 01:35:00
News has been slow in the EnterpriseDB world lately. I haven't posted in a while.Bob Zurek is EnterpriseDB's (fairly) new CTO. He is an ex-IBM exec and maintains his blog on the IBM DeveloperWorks blog area. He's been blogging for a long time so I'm not sure how he worked out the move from IBM to EnterpriseDB and kept the same area. Anyway, Bob posted an open letter to the Wall Street Journal about a reporter's take on Open Source . Bob objected to the reporter, Walter K. Mosberg, classifying open source as a two-edge sword.But open source is a two-edge sword. While it draws on smart developers from many places, nobody is ultimately responsible for the quality of the product, and open source developers have an imperfect feel for how average people use software.Bob says:I?d like to respectfully take issue with this statement. As a person active in the tech industry, you know that there has been a strong open source track record in the software industry where many companies, ...
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EnterpriseDB Install Annoyance
2007-09-08 20:17:00
This is just a little peeve of mine. When you install EnterpriseDB, you can choose either a full production license or the free EnterpriseDB Express version. On my laptop, I want to run the express version. I don't need it to use more than 1 gig of ram, more than 1 cpu or more than 6gb of disk. But I can't even install it because my hardware exceeds those specs.Oracle Express Edition has the same limitations as EnterpriseDB Express (and so does Microsoft SQL Server Express), but Oracle (and MS) limit their hardware usage by building the limits into the software. You can install the software on hardware as big as you have and the software will limit itself while it is running.The EnterpriseDB installer won't even let you install. That also has me wondering about using EnterpriseDB. Oracle allows a developer to download, install and use the full blown enterprise edition of Oracle without any kind of key or license beyond the developer license. It looks like developers can o...
More About: Annoyance , License , Anno

EnterpriseDB and Vars
2007-09-03 03:43:00
A neat article in the September 2007 issue of VARBusiness. The article is titled: EnterpriseDB Offers Options To Oracle Lock-In. Not a lot of new info here but there were several good points.The mention the EnterpriseDB ROI calculator, EnterpriseDB provides a calculator on its Web site where prospective customers can compare Oracle licensing costs to EnterpriseDB subscription fees. I blogged about this a while back, EnterpriseDB - Measure ROI versus Oracle.They also talk about how most of EnterpriseDB sales are direct but EnterpriseDB expects,that partners could account for as much as 30 percent to 40 percent of EnterpriseDB's sales by the end of next year. "A major part of our revenue pull will be OEMs and companies that sell Enterprise DB with their apps," he says.I can see that. Many companies should be looking for lower price selections from their partners. In turn that should lower database costs for everyone.On this I didn't know is that Compiere is certified for Enterp...
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EnterpriseDB Webinar Recording - From Oracle to EnterpriseDB: An Oracle ACE
2007-08-29 04:16:00
Well, the webinar has been done. The recording has been posted to something called Jumpcut. This is video and audio. Check it out and give me feedback.If that doesn't play for you, you can watch it on Jumpcut, From Oracle to EnterpriseDB: An Oracle ACE's Journey.Thanks,LewisCoracle enterprisedb webinar migration video audio
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Bruce Momjian Interview in InformationWeek
2007-08-25 23:29:00
InformationWeek has a good interview with Bruce : Open Source PostgreSQL Developer Bruce Momjian Spills The DB Beans.In the interview, Bruce talks about how he spends one day a week at the EnterpriseDB site but most of his time working on Postgres. There aren't a lot of quotes in the interview. I wonder if a longer interview is coming.There are a few anti-comparisons between "bearded sage" Momjian and JBoss' Marc Fleury and, of course, the obligatory comparison to MySQL.PostgreSQL sought to match major relational database systems and afterward addressed performance. "We didn't focus on performance until the end. MySQL had that right at the start," he acknowledges.It's a short read but worth the time. LewisCoracle enterprisedb
More About: Oracle , Interview

EnterpriseDB Webinar
2007-08-22 23:01:00
I did the EnterpriseDB Migration webinar today. The webinar was recorded and will be posted on the EnterpriseDB web site. I'll update this post with a link as soon as it is.I think it went well. Derek had a family emergency and was not able to participate but his stand-in Matthew Bennett knew his stuff. He did the intro and then the follow up. We both answered questions. There were some really good questions. I will try to cover some those here, in the future. For now, you can view the powerpoint presentation. I really like the plug. That's kind of a cool image.Take care,LewisCoracle enterprisedb migration webinar
More About: Oracle , Webinar