E-BOOK

Comparison:
EDB Products & Services vs.
Self-Supported PostgreSQL

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COMPARISON: EDB PRODUCTS & SERVICES VS. SELF-SUPPORTED POSTGRESQL

Contents
Introduction
03

PostgreSQL
04

EDB Products & Services

05

Advantages
06
— Increased Security
— Enterprise Ready Tools
— Oracle® Compatibility Features
— More Deployment Options

Enhanced Integration
21

PostgresSQL Community Leadership 23

Conclusion
26

24/7 Follow the Sun Support

28

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Introduction
Like all database management systems, PostgreSQL requires additional enterprise tools and capabilities to
provide missioncritical features at scale. These include additional tools for high availability, disaster recovery, data
migration and integration.

To meet these needs, EDB Postgres Advanced Server, which adds additional features, capabilities and support
around the PostgreSQL database including:

• Increased security
• Mission-critical tools
• Oracle® compatibility features
• Modern deployment options
• Enhanced integration
• Enhanced DBA and Developer productivity
• PostgreSQL community leadership
• 24x7 “Follow-the-Sun” support

This document explains the key differences between

using EDB Products & Services versus self-supported
PostgreSQL alone.

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PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL is a relational database management system (DBMS) that has been an active open source project since
1996. It is one of the oldest and most stable open source projects as a result of the commitment of its members and
its independence as a standalone community.

PostgreSQL has a reputation for high quality, standards-based code, extensive security features, excellent
documentation, and applicable for a wide variety of workloads including unstructured data like JSON documents
and key-value stores. New releases are published yearly, regular updates are provided quarterly and ad hoc security
or maintenance updates are published as needed.

Users can freely download source code and build the database binaries themselves. If users prefer not to build the
binaries themselves, they can either obtain free PostgreSQL from a number of packagers who include it in their
software distribution (e.g., Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or directly from the EDB website at
https://www.enterprisedb.com/downloads/postgresql.

The PostgreSQL software license is quite liberal and allows use without cost or signed agreements.
It also allows modification and redistribution without the need to contribute changes back to the community.

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EDB Products & Services

EDB Products start with the open source PostgreSQL database system and adds enterprise-class features and
tools. These critical components are used by thousands of organizations worldwide to reliably operate PostgreSQL
at scale while minimizing risk.

The platform consists of two database options:

• PostgreSQL
• EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server™

EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server is a continuously synchronized commercial derivative database based on
PostgreSQL, containing all the features and fixes of the open source database, plus added enterprise features for
security, performance and database compatibility for Oracle.

Why does EDB include two databases in its platform?

• Some companies mandate use of open source software
• To provide choice depending upon the needs of a given application or organization
• To provide additional enterprise features and capabilities not available in standard PostgreSQL

Surrounding the database in the EDB Postgres Advanced

Server are powerful tools developed, maintained, packaged,
distributed, supported and documented by EDB.

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Advantages
This section identifies the advantages of using the EDB Products & Services in comparison to operating a
PostgreSQL database in a self-supported model (i.e., not partnered with a commercial entity).

1. Increased Security EDB Postgres Advanced Server also has tools

and techniques under development to help make
Enhanced Auditing PostgreSQL databases compliant with the EU’s General
EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server includes additional Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While PostgreSQL
built-in auditing features that capture more detailed offers a rock-solid foundation of security, EDB Postgres
data about who did what and when in the database. Advanced Server has certain additional features that
Session tag auditing in EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server are not available in self-supported PostgreSQL, making
allows developers to capture middle tier data that goes the EDB Postgres Advanced Server a more efficient and
beyond the generic database user IDs in PostgreSQL effective fit for GDPR compliance.
that may be shared in connection pools.
Data Redaction
SQL Injection Protection Data Redaction, or Dynamic Data Masking, is the
Self-supporting PostgreSQL users don’t have ready- process of hiding sensitive data such as Credit Card
made protection against SQL injection attacks where Numbers in the results of a SQL query prior to delivery
malicious SQL code can be entered into web form to applications. For example, a credit card number
fields to damage or destroy the data. SQL/Protect has 5105-1051-0510-5100 can be redacted to xxxx-
been a standard part of the EDB Postgres Advanced xxxxxxxx-5100. Sensitive data is redacted on-thefly
Server for years and provides centralized DBA managed without actually changing data stored in the database.
protection against a variety of SQL injection vectors, Because it is centralized as part of the database,
so organizations don’t need to rely solely on individual redaction is very easy to setup and maintain compared
developers to consistently write bullet-proof code. to proxybased programmed solutions. Patching and
upgrading is part of the standard database update
process. Currently, there is no native, secure and easy
Security Certifications
to use data redaction in PostgreSQL, and solutions
EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server is the first PostgreSQL- need to be home grown, which poses quality problems.
based RDBMS to receive a Security Technical
Implementation Guide (STIG) from the US Defense
Information Systems Agency (DISA) after a year of
collaboration. EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server is also
the only PostgreSQL-based distribution on Windows
that has FIPS 140-2 certification (a U.S. government
computer security standard used to approve
cryptographic modules).

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Row-Level Security (RLS) 2. Enterprise Ready Tools

RLS is useful for multi-tenant applications or simply
where different user populations must be restricted Enterprise Management Tools
from accessing each others data. EDB Products have a significant advantage over
self-supported PostgreSQL when an organization
In direct response to customer requests, EDB added explores essential tools around the database for high
this feature to EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server many availability, backup and disaster recovery, replication
years ahead of its addition to PostgreSQL, and did so and database management, monitoring, and tuning.
in an Oracle-compatible fashion as Virtual Private EDB’s tools are born directly out of the requirements
Database. As a result, users did not have to wait as long of EDB’s large enterprise customers, cover more use
for inclusion in PostgreSQL and could work directly cases than community tools (specifically in high
with EDB to get this new feature implemented in line availability, heteogenous replication and Kubernetes
with their time requirements. deployments), and provide a one stop shop for best-of-
breed capabilities.
In contrast to PostgreSQL’s RLS implementation,
any user with Oracle® experience will find EDB In contrast, a self-supporting PostgreSQL user
Postgres™ Advanced Server RLS easy to use because relying solely on the “free” PostgreSQL ecosystem
it is compatible with Oracle® and easier to maintain must navigate multiple independent projects for
because it: management, monitoring, tuning, replication,
connection pooling and high availability tools. There
• Is policy based may also be multiple projects within a single tool
domain (i.e., backup). This project dispersion presents
• Is more flexible in that it can be applied only if
a few challenges for the self-supporting PostgreSQL
certain columns are accessed
user. First, users must spend time evaluating all the
• Can be leveraged against application users different options and choose the best tool. Second,
upon the new release of any tool, users must test it
against their other tools. And third, testing, support,
release schedules and documentation will be different
RLS is useful for multi-tenant for each tool project, making general management
across all the tools difficult.
applications or simply where
different user populations must EDB’s tools work with both PostgreSQL and EDB
Postgres™ Advanced Server making for easy operation
be restricted from accessing and maintenance at installations where both
each others data. databases are in use. EDB also deploys and tests its
tools in an integrated fashion with every release and
provides consistent support, release coordination and
documentation.

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Postgres Enterprise Manager

pgAdmin is arguably the most popular tool for managing individual PostgreSQL databases. Postgres Enterprise
Manager (following the EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server model) is built upon and continuously synchronized with
pgAdmin and adds the following features requested by EDB enterprise customers:

Postgres
Enterprise Manager

• A single pane of glass for monitoring, alerting • Integrate with EDB Backup and Recovery Tool for
and general management of multiple Postgres centralized backup and restore of Postgres servers
databases
• SMTP/SNMP support with prioritization and
• Custom dashboards with drill down features, like schedule-awareness alerts the right people with
time and data zooming, to bring critical data to the right information at the right time
light quickly
• Integration with Nagios for more advanced
• Auto-discovery of managed servers that reduces monitoring
setup time

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• Custom probes monitor and alert specific • Log Manager configures log settings in bulk,
instrumentation for unique application needs saving time and increasing standardization

• Custom alerts included for log files • Log Analysis Expert reports log statistics on
long running queries, unique queries, time spent
• Index Advisor automatically finds and creates new running queries and locking statistics
indexes to optimize slow queries and integrates
with the SQL Profiler • Session Wait Analysis dashboard simplifies
performance diagnosis and pin-points bottlenecks
• Tuning Wizard gets the most performance out of
hardware, operating system and database workload • Team Manager segregates access to managed
profile servers by users and roles

• Bulk operations against multiple databases at once • Capacity Manager forecasts storage needs for
more efficient data center planning

Similarly to PostgreSQL, pgAdmin provides a great foundation upon which EDB has added a great variety of
essential enterprise capabilities to make managing large-scale installations of PostgreSQL easy.

Manage everything
from one GUI

Optimize database
performance

Monitor multiple
scenarios at a glance

Reduce administrative burden

TUNING WIZARD IN POSTGRES ENTERPRISE MANAGER

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Failover Manager
Failover Manager creates highly available fault tolerant clusters, minimizing database downtime with health
monitoring, failure detection/notification, downed node fencing (STONITH) and automatic failover. A simple and
lightweight architecture protects against a variety of failure scenarios, while allowing end users to customize for
specific application needs.

Key features include:

• Support for multi-server clusters for desired • Prevents “split brain” scenarios guarding against
redundancy potential data corruption

• Architected with no single point of failure • Supports automatic failover to a standby replica
for hands-free resolutions
• Easy to install, configure and use, resulting in
quick implementation of high availability • Postgres fast binary streaming replication keeps
failover replicas up-to-date
• Configurable health monitoring and witness
architecture prevent unnecessary or false failovers • Administrative switchover and switchback
provides complete cluster control
• Configurable failure detection and failure actions
support high availability requirements

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• Controlled switchover/switchback provides • Fencing operations support virtual IPs and load
near zero downtime maintenance and testable balancers for maximum flexibility
configurations
• Automatic email notifications keep DBAs
• Pre- and post-promotion fencing scripts prevent informed of all status/health changes
suspect servers from re-joining a cluster, and
causing possible data loss

Configuration options make integration with existing environments easier. In addition to sending email
notifications, Failover Manager can trigger customer-supplied scripts to send notifications to real-time chat
rooms or via SNMP. Additional trigger points allow DBAs to create a wider range of instructions to be executed in
the event of a failure.

The PostgreSQL ecosystem offers a variety of options that are easy to find by an Internet search for “PostgreSQL
automatic failover.” Then the self-supporting PostgreSQL user needs to inventory and evaluate the feature
differences between each one to be sure it will meet their specific needs.

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Backup and Recovery Tool (BART)

Backup and Recovery Tool safeguards local and remote data by eliminating error prone scripting and manual
tasks with simple commands, a command line interface or GUI, centrally managed catalog, point-in-time
recovery (PITR) retention policies, compression and other automated capabilities.

Backup and Recovery Tool

Key features include:

• Backup/restore of local and remote databases to • Block-based incremental backups speed up

protect all data recovery, and reduce storage needs

• Hot physical backups don’t interrupt user • Compression reduces network traffic and needed
operations storage space

• Supports base backups and continuously-archived • Centrally managed catalog provides easy reporting
WAL segments for fine-grained control over and recovery
recovery timelines

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• Retention Manager supports redundancy copies • Command line interface integrates with existing
or recovery window policies reducing cleanup CRON jobs
maintenance time
• Friendly user-defined backup names
• Point-in-time recovery options minimize data
recovery and recreation

• Automatic table space support reduces a DBA’s

workload

Again the PostgreSQL ecosystem offers a variety of options discoverable with an Internet search for “PostgreSQL
backup tools.” A similar exercise as would be done for high availability tools also needs to be completed.

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Replication Server

Replication Server provides solutions to a wide variety of data center issues in one package. It moves data in
bulk or copies transactions in near realtime from one database to another. Support for different database types,
flexible configuration options, custom data handling features and a graphical management interface allow DBAs
to provide customized data movement/exchange solutions easily and quickly. Currently available tools for self-
supporting users in the PostgreSQL market lack the out-of-the-box capabilities present in Replication Server.

Replication from SQL

Multi-Master Replications
Server or Oracle to Postgres

Replication Server can:

• Operate in single or multi-master modes • Copy data for backups and safekeeping

• Exchange data with Oracle® and Microsoft® SQL • Feed data to test the stability of a new database
Server to prevent buying extra licenses software version
• Seed new database applications with real-time data
• Exchange data with on-premises and cloud-based
environments • Constantly move data to local or remote reporting
servers, avoiding slow ETL processes
• Offload reporting tasks from a master database,
improving performance • Be used for testing application upgrades or staging
systems with real data

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Replication Server features include:

• Log-based binary replication engine keeps latency • Fast log-based replication provides near instant
low and supports more replicas replication

• Publish - subscribe architecture supports modern • A replication scheduler allows off-peak operations
distributed data centers without impacting normal database use

• Offline schema/snapshot replication or online • A replication history viewer provides easy

continuous replication gives DBAs more options confirmation and troubleshooting

• Table-based replication allows exchanging subsets • Automatic schema replication avoids maintenance
of a database headaches

• Row filters only replicate data needed by the • Table DDL replication keeps the system online
application, reducing network traffic and storage during updates

• Cascading configurations provide support for • Graphical console and Command Line Interface
special needs (CLI)

Unlike the high availability and backup tools, an evaluation of replication tools can be quite extensive as they can
be used to solve many different problems in a data architecture.

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Migration Tool Kit

Migration Tool Kit migrates Oracle®, Microsoft® SQL Server® and MySQL data to PostgreSQL, providing online
offline schema/data migration with flexible customization and fast parallel data loading.

Key features include

• Automated schema/data migration • Customize migrations - specify whether or not

save time and effort to include table constraints/ triggers/indexes,
manage bulk inserts, apply row filters, change
• Online migration - migrate source database data types inline, and specify subsets of schema
directly into PostgreSQL or Advanced Server, objects to migrate or all
making it available for immediate use
• Fast data migration - employ parallel data
• Offline migration - create DDL scripts that can be movement techniques, bypass logging for faster
edited and run at a later scheduled time data loads or use native connectivity to source
database
• Multiple database support - migrate from
Microsoft® SQL Server®, Sybase, or Oracle®
(including PL/SQL code) to PostgreSQL or EDB
Postgres™ Advanced Server

Many tools are also available in the PostgreSQL ecosystem, but none is capable
of also migrating the database stored procedures and functions (PL/SQL) of the
most widely used RDBMS, Oracle®.

Depending on the complexity of the application, this can save months of work to
rewrite and retest code.

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Performance Features
While self-supporting PostgreSQL users can enjoy some of EDB’s general performance features noted above, only
subscribers to the EDB Products and Services will receive EDB’s expertise in supporting, troubleshooting, and
tuning these features in production deployments. Finally, the features listed below in the EDB Postgres Advanced
Server are not available to unsupported PostgreSQL users.

Interval Partitioning Performance Analysis

For extremely large tables, both PostgreSQL and EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server uses the Dynamic
Advanced Server support Range, List and Hash Runtime Instrumentation Tools Architecture, which
partitioning to meet many user needs. However, monitors and records low-level SQL session and
Advanced Server also supports Interval Partitioning, system wait events. Diagnostic data is inserted to
which automatically creates the interval partitions as catalog views that can be queried and provide detailed
data arrives without causing deadlocks. statistics to help diagnose and fix performance
bottlenecks. Other important performance related
Query Hints features that are part of Postgres Enterprise Manager
Optimizer hints are directives that can be embedded and not available to self-supporting PostgreSQL users
in certain SQL statements. These directives force the using pgAdmin:
query optimizer to use (or not to use) a given type of
query plan to retrieve data more efficiently (should • SQL Profiler analyzes large SQL workloads and
one discover the optimizer is selecting a suboptimal helps identify poorly performing SQL
plan). They are extremely handy when developers
know more about the nature of the data and record • Index adviser can also be employed to examine
structures than the formal assumptions that are table structures and definitions, make
part of the optimizer. EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server recommendations for new indexes, and even deploy
includes a wide variety of hints that can be applied to those indexes with the push of a button
access methods, join orders, join plans, appends and
parallelism. • Postgres Expert can analyze the configuration files
for databases en masse and make best practice
Bulk Data Loading recommendations for key performance and
EDB*Loader is a high-performance tool for loading maintenance settings
data in bulk. It also supports parallel processing of
tables.

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3. Oracle® Compatibility Features

EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server provides several important Oracle-like features. In fact, many EDB customers who
don’t use Oracle® database products appreciate the additional features in EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server. The
Oracle® compatibility helps them meet mission critical requirements

Oracle® Compatibility Oracle® Compatibility

for Oracle Users for Non-Oracle Users
For organizations using Oracle® database software EDB’s compatibility for Oracle® has been in
or trying to get away from it, compatibility in the EDB development since 2005. As mentioned above,
Postgres Advanced Server offers many advantages: many organizations use the EDB Postgres Advanced
Server simply because it has features (most added
• Automated schema/data migration - save time and for Oracle® compatibility) that are necessary for
effort enterprise applications. These include:

• EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server’s database • Automated schema/data migration - save time
compatibility provides similar Oracle-like features and effort
so developers and operations staff can continue to
leverage many of their existing Oracle® skills • Database integrated password management for
additional security
• EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server understands and
executes Oracle’s PL/SQL commands natively • Function Packages for developer productivity
without killing performance and without difficult-
to-debug emulation, translation or layers on other • A resource manager to control and allocate CPU
languages and I/O resources in the database

• Much less re-writing of core business logic • Enhanced auditing up the application stack to
track actual end user activity
• Support for code written for OCI and Proc*C
• Procedural language obfuscation to protect
• Integrates into Oracle® environments with sensitive code or algorithms in the database
heterogeneous replication or direct database links

• DBAs can leverage their experience with Oracle®

on EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server - using Oracle®
compatible tools such as Password Profiles,
Catalog Views, partitioning, SQL*Plus, SQL*Wrap,
SQL*Loader, PL/SQL, Virtual Private Database and
more

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Beware of “Me Too” Migrations

for Oracle Users
Many PostgreSQL consultancies and major public cloud providers advertise Oracle® migrations to PostgreSQL
using tools similar to what EDB provides. However, most noticeably absent from those solutions is the migration
of PL/SQL, the Oracle® programming language that encodes critical business logic and functions inside the
database.

These “me too” migrations are for all intents and purposes complete rewrites of business logic—logic that may
have thousands of hours of coding and testing behind them and years of flawless operation. EDB Postgres™
Advanced Server Oracle® compatibility natively understands and executes the original PL/SQL without emulation
or translation layers and requires little rewriting of code. This dramatically reduces the risks of a migration and
preserves staff knowledge and use of years of Oracle® skills.

4. More Deployment Options

EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server provides several important Oracle-like features. In fact, many EDB customers who
don’t use Oracle® database products appreciate the additional features in EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server. The
Oracle® compatibility helps them meet mission critical requirements

Multiple Environments
Since PostgreSQL is in widespread use across the • Bare metal
world in organizations of all types and sizes, it has • Virtual machines
been operated in today’s most popular environments.
• Kubernetes
Both PostgreSQL and EDB Postgres™ Advanced
• Private cloud
Server can be deployed in a variety of environments/
deployment models including: • Public cloud

The advantage of EDB Products & Services is twofold:

• Users deal with just one organization for software acquisition, support, maintenance and training for all these
environments.

• It can be deployed across multiple cloud providers, enabling users to arbitrage for the best workload
performance and price.

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Many organizations find themselves running two or three of these environments simultaneously even as they
move off one to a new one. Running multiple environments presents unique challenges to provisioning, licensing,
costs, management, monitoring, performance, security, high availability, replication, maintenance, scaling, data
governance and backup.

Architecting and re-architecting a database platform for best practices across all these challenges can take a lot of
time and trial and error. Relying on a single platform from a single vendor is ultimately more efficient than dealing
with multiple different organizations when using a self-supporting PostgreSQL strategy. EDB’s large customer base
also provides a broad perspective of the circumstances most organizations face and the best practice competencies
they need.

Emerging Technologies
EDB continues to work with customers and apply this knowledge of PostgreSQL to new environments and evolving
requirements like containers, hybrid cloud and Platform as a Service. These new capabilities have been added
to fully integrate and automate databases in custom DevOps environments based on Kubernetes and scripting
languages like Chef and Puppet.

Organizations adopting a self-supporting PostgreSQL model simply won’t get the specialized deployment tools
available to an EDB user.

Get Started with EDB’s Professional Services Contact US

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Enhanced Integration
EDB Postgres Advanced Server can integrate with other relational and non-relational databases in a variety of
ways. Some are also possible with self-supported PostgreSQL, but would not come with the support and expertise
provided by EDB.

Heterogeneous Database Replication

EDB Postgres Advanced Server provides a replication server that meets a wide variety of requirements.
One unique characteristic is its ability to replicate between Postgres databases and Oracle®
or Microsoft SQL® Server databases.

For a single-master replication system, a variety of For multi-master replication, the participating
configurations are supported including replication: database servers must be of the same type:

• Between PostgreSQL and EDB Postgres™ Advanced • PostgreSQL database servers

Server databases (in either direction)
• PostgreSQL database servers and EDB Postgres™
• From Oracle® to PostgreSQL Advanced Server operating in PostgreSQL
compatible mode
• In either direction between Oracle® and EDB
Postgres™ Advanced Server • EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server operating in
PostgreSQL compatible mode
• In either direction between Microsoft SQL Server®
and PostgreSQL • EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server operating in
Oracle® compatible mode
• In either direction between Microsoft SQL® Server
and EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server

Replication Server also allows table and record filtering so there is no need to replicate an entire database from one
location to the next—only the data that is needed. Performance is further enhanced by using the binary replication
technology available in PostgreSQL. Selfsupported PostgreSQL users can find single and multi-master solutions
in the PostgreSQL ecosystem, but none of them are ready to run and configure right out of the box like Replication
Server. They often require significant programming and setup specific to each installation. In addition, community
replication solutions do not provide an easy-to-use GUI or CLI.

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Oracle® Database Links

EDB Postgres Advanced Server provides for a tighter coupling with Oracle® databases through the use of database
links. A database link is an object that allows a reference to a table or view in a remote Oracle® database based on
OCI within a DELETE, INSERT, SELECT or UPDATE command. This allows direct operations between EDB Postgres
Advanced Server™ and Oracle® databases without using additional software and hardware required by a solution like
a standalone replication server.

Data Adapters
In addition to Oracle® databases, there has been a small explosion of specialty and niche databases that now play
crucial roles inside most large organizations. These include document and key-value based databases and more
generalized large scale data stores like Hadoop. Consequently, a workhorse relational database system must
integrate with and/or consolidate data from these sources.

Integration with non-relational data formats has been a priority for the EDB Postgres Advanced Server. EDB has
taken a leading role in the PostgreSQL community in the development of foreign data wrappers (FDWs) based on
the SQL/MED standard (SQL Management of External Data). EDB is the primary developer behind the community
FDWs for MySQL, MongoDB and Hadoop, which serve as the foundation for the EDB Postgres Advanced Server data
adapters.

While EDB contributes the FDWs to the community via GitHub, EDB Postgres Advanced Server remains premier
supplier of support and solution assistance for integrating the MongoDB JSON data, Hadoop analytics data and
MySQL website data integrations.Postgres™ and Oracle® databases without using additional software and hardware
required by a solution like a standalone replication server.

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Enhanced Productivity
Developer Productivity
EDB Products & Services provides features that improve productivity specifically for application developers that are
not available in self-supported PostgreSQL environments.

Function Packages
One of the most important developer features in EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server are its 21 predefined reusable
Function Packages. These user expandable standard libraries replace a lot of extra coding with best practice code
that speeds up the development process and reduces testing and debugging with over 200 functions for common
programming tasks like:

• Database event notifications • Randomizing data

• Data encryption • Row level security and role setting

• Job scheduling • Database metadata access

• Large object and raw data type manipulation • Base64 encoding

• Locking services • Reading/writing OS files

• Debugging output • HTTP calls

• Inter-session communication • Mail operations

• SQL tuning • URL handlingand EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server

• Dynamic SQL

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Hierarchical Query
A time saving and error reducing construct is the hierarchical query. This feature returns a result row composed
of data from one or more rows in the same table based on a hierarchical relationship between the rows, such as
manager to employee. This relieves the developer from much more complex coding.

Bulk Collect and Binds Specialized Data Types

Bulk Collect and Binds provide extremely EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server also provides developers with
fast processing for queries that perform a a variety of enhanced data types necessary for many of today’s
lot of switching between the SQL and Store modern programming tasks by offering new ways of collecting
Procedure engines. data and methods of organizing it. These include:

Bulk binding is used when a SQL statement • Between PostgreSQL and EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server
is required to change a set of rows with databases (in either direction)
a different set of values for each row.
• User defined object types - allow the database to store
This technique is applied by the FORALL
real world object oriented representations of data, making
statement. The FORALL statement passes sets
development easier and quicker
of values to the database server in collections.
This eliminates the need to reiteratively • Associative arrays - a flexible data type that allows a column
invoke the same SQL statement with the ‘value’ to hold one or more key-value pairs in an array
different values.
• VARRAYS - a flexible array data type for a column that stores
Bulk collecting is used when a SQL statement a set number of elements that cannot be deleted and that
returns multiple rows such as in a SELECT have no gaps in the assignment of keys to values
statement, FETCH statement, or when the
RETURNING clause is used with insertions,
• Public/private synonyms - a timesaving shorthand name that
can be used to reference another fully qualified database
updates, or deletions. The BULK COLLECT
object in a SQL statement
clause employs bulk collecting to return the
result set in collections. • User defined exceptions - gives developers more control
over error reporting and error handling when processing
sophisticated data

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COMPARISON: EDB PRODUCTS & SERVICES VS. SELF-SUPPORTED POSTGRESQL

DBA Productivity
Whereas the previous features help those people tasked with creating applications, EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server
also provides special features to make people tasked with managing the day-to-day operations of databases more
productive. These too are not available in a selfsupported PostgreSQL environment.

Resource Manager instrumentation will record the number of times each

event occurs as well as the time spent waiting for it
The EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server Resource Manager
to complete on targeted processes. This type of fine-
allows a DBA to throttle CPU and I/O, assigning
grained analysis is critical to the fast diagnosis and
limits to different process groups. This protects high
troubleshooting of difficult performance problems.
priority database processes like website purchase
transactions from resource hungry low priority jobs
that may be doing data loads, reporting or analysis.
Bulk Data Loading
The ability to protect performance for certain
EDB*Loader is often used for extremely large jobs.
production processes is extremely important for
A feature that DBAs who use the EDB Postgres
operational efficiency.
Advanced Server really like is EDB*Loader’s ability
to record and save input data that have errors
Enhanced Catalog Views and continue processing the remaining data to
completion. This allows DBAs to fix the errors one
Another DBA feature in EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server
time all together and reload just those inputs. If
is a set of over 55 additional catalog views that profile
limited to using the PostgreSQL COPY command,
all the objects and processing that occurs in the
then DBAs must contend with the command aborting
database. These additional views to those provided in
on error and possibly executing multiple cycles of fix
PostgreSQL help DBA’s understand their databases
and re-load.
better, produce more detailed data processing reports,
and save time in troubleshooting, security, and
maintenance.

Dynamic Runtime Instrumentation Tools

Architectures (DRITA)

Related to the extra catalog views are dynamic

runtime instrumentation statistics gathered by EDB
Postgres™ Advanced Server. This feature allows a DBA
to easily query catalog views populated with user
selected statistics and determine the wait events that
affect performance. EDB Postgres™ Advanced Server

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COMPARISON: EDB PRODUCTS & SERVICES VS. SELF-SUPPORTED POSTGRESQL

PostgreSQL Community Leadership

PostgreSQL community participation with a commercial partner gives users deeper insights into creating solutions
and allows them to actively influence the feature roadmap to address their specific requirements. Users of
PostgreSQL will always be best served with a partner like EDB, as evidenced by the depth and breadth of EDB’s
community involvement described below.

EDB Customer Driven Feature Contributions to PostgreSQL

EDB has developed major PostgreSQL product features including:

• Pluggable database engines (i.e. • Materialized views (PostgreSQL 9.3, 9.4)

table access methods in PostgreSQL 12)
• Greatly reduced System V shared memory
• Parallel Query (PostgreSQL 9.6) requirements (PostgreSQL 9.3)

• Allowing old MVCC snapshots to be invalidated • Index-only scans (PostgreSQL 9.2)

after a configurable timeout (PostgreSQL 9.6)
synchronous_commit=remote_apply, allowing • Original version of the JSON data type
reliable read-scaling clusters (PostgreSQL 9.6) (PostgreSQL 9.2)

• Lock improvements to increase scalability on • Unlogged tables (PostgreSQL 9.1)

multi-CPU machines (PostgreSQL 9.5, 9.4, 9.2)
• Automatic sizing of the free space map
• ALTER SYSTEM (PostgreSQL 9.4) (PostgreSQL 8.4)

• Background worker processes that are dynamically • Visibility map (PostgreSQL 8.4)
started and terminated (PostgreSQL 9.4)
• Heap Only Tuples (HOT) to accelerate space reuse
and reduce MVCC overhead (PostgreSQL 8.3)

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COMPARISON: EDB PRODUCTS & SERVICES VS. SELF-SUPPORTED POSTGRESQL

EDB Tool Contributions to the EDB PostgreSQL Community Activities

PostgreSQL Ecosystem EDB creates and maintains installers to speed and
EDB contributes code and tools to selected ease the deployment ofPostgreSQL for everyone:
PostgreSQL community ecosystem projects,
such as:
• Creates and hosts freely available GUI binary
installers for PostgreSQL
• hdfs_fdw - a Postgres Foreign Data Wrapper for
the Hadoop Distributed File System
• Maintains freely available RPM installers for
PostgreSQL
• mongo_fdw - a Postgres Foreign Data Wrapper for
BSON data

EDB supports the PostgreSQL community’s ongoing

• mysql_fdw - a Postgres Foreign Data Wrapper for
needs for running an open source project:
MySQL

• pg_catcheck - a simple tool for diagnosing system

• Hosting portions of the community’s online
infrastructure
catalog corruption

• pg_hibernator - save and restore the Postgres

• Testing of new features during the development
process
shared-buffers contents across Postgres server
restarts eliminating slow performance due to
• Working with hardware vendors to ensure
cache warmup cycles
PostgreSQL performs and scales well on their
platforms
• pg_nosql_benchmark - a tool for benchmarking
Postgres (JSONB) and MongoDB (BSON)
• Encouraging the growth of the PostgreSQL
ecosystem with partnerships
• pgAdmin - the leading PostgreSQL development
environment

• Postgres-XC - a horizontal scaling fork of Postgres,

whose major innovations are now being merged
back into core Postgres

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COMPARISON: EDB PRODUCTS & SERVICES VS. SELF-SUPPORTED POSTGRESQL

24x7 Follow the Sun Support

EDB Customer Driven Feature Contributions to PostgreSQL
EDB Products and Services provides all the traditional software vendor services for PostgreSQL or EDB Postgres™
Advanced Server but with a pricing model that dramatically lowers the cost of these traditional services to the end
user. EDB’s services include:

• Live human-to-human support with Postgres • Technical and security alerts

experts backstopped by key community staff
• Professional Support Portal with Knowledge Base
• Support through all phases of the application
lifecycle including evaluation/suitability, • Professional bug tracking and resolution tools
application development and testing, production
• Professional high quality documentation
deployment, and production operations
• Technical videos
• 24x7 Service Level Agreements
• Extended Lifetime Support options
• Software distribution services, including the
building and testing of GUI and RPM installers

• Software maintenance and testing, including

patches and emergency field fixes

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COMPARISON: EDB PRODUCTS & SERVICES VS. SELF-SUPPORTED POSTGRESQL

Learn More
For more information about the differences between self-supported PostgreSQL and
the EDB Products and Services, please contact [email protected].

About EDB
PostgreSQL is increasingly the database of choice for organizations looking to boost innovation and
accelerate business. EDB’s enterprise-class software extends PostgreSQL, helping our customers
get the most out of it both on premises and in the cloud. And our 24x7 global support, professional
services, and training help our customers control risk, manage costs, and scale efficiently.

With 16 offices worldwide, EDB serves over 4,000 customers, including leading financial services,
government, media and communications, and information technology organizations. To learn about
PostgreSQL for people, teams, and enterprises, visit edbpostgres.com.

EDB | WWW.EDBPOSTGRES.COM 29
eBook

Comparison:
EDB Products & Services vs.
Self-Supported PostgreSQL

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