The Firebird Project's Firebird Relational Database

James Gray — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 17:38:14 +0000

Firebird distills its identity into the phrase "True universal open-source database" and boasts not only of being "free like free beer" but also, fittingly, of being "free like a bird". The latter permits anyone to build a custom version of the Firebird, as long as the modifications are made available for others to use and build upon.

Technically speaking, Firebird is a relational database offering many ANSI SQL standard features and runs on Linux, Windows and various UNIX platforms. Firebird 3.0 is the latest major release that succeeds most notably in unifying the server architecture and improving support for SMP and multiple-core hardware platforms. Parallel gains in 3.0 include an improvement in the threading of engine processes and the options for sharing page cache across thread and connection boundaries, among other improvements.

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The PostgreSQL Global Development Group's PostgreSQL

James Gray — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 16:00:00 +0000

by James Gray

With Gartner predicting that 70% of new applications soon will be deployed on an open-source relational database, purveyors of proprietary DBMSes surely long for the golden lock-in age of yore. Said trend is in no small part due to the surging PostgreSQL, which recently stepped up to a new version 9.5. Highlights of this release, reported the PostgreSQL Global Development Group, include the addition of UPSERT capability, Row Level Security and multiple Big Data features, all of which the Group hopes will broaden the user base for the database. The Group added that version 9.5 marks a turning point for use of Postgres with data-driven applications of engagement and high-speed, high-volume mobile, Web and digital apps. Other specific features are performance boosters for today's more powerful big iron servers, analytics and productivity enhancements to speed complex query capabilities on extreme data volumes, and a foundation for horizontal scalability across multiple servers for importing entire tables from external databases.

http://postgresql.org

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