Oracle MySQL rival PostgreSQL updated

While Oracle trumpets its open source MySQL database management system this week at the company's OpenWorld conference, the creators behind MySQL's rival, PostgreSQL, have released a major new version of their rival database software.

The newly released version 9 of PostgreSQL includes a number of new features that are potentially appealing to enterprise users. It includes the ability to do streaming replication, the upgrade process has been made considerably easier, and for the first time, it can run natively on clients running the 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows.

For this release, the developers applied "the mainstream polish on the database, and not [have] it just be something for open-source people," said Bruce Momjian, a core developer to the open-source project, in a previous interview with the IDG News Service.

"We're now focusing on ease of use, ease of administration, and providing the type of facilities that we think large organizations need," he said.

In conjunction with this release, EnterpriseDB, which offers enterprise support and related software for PostgreSQL, has updated its Postgres Plus line of products to support PostgeSQL version 9.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com