Growing international adoption proves credibility of PostgreSQL.

The article reports that PostgreSQL is the leading alternative database to MySQL open source development and deployment platform. Where MySQL places a high value on ease of use and takes a minimalist approach to ensure simplicity and fast performance, Postgres focuses on providing rich features and standards compliance. The open source database market is becoming crowded and big players are getting in on the act. About 12 companies are involved in PostgreSQL development including Red Hat, database supplier Pervasive and Fujitsu. With the release of PostgreSQL 8.0 in January 2005, PostgreSQL is becoming a serious option for enterprise databases. The latest features include Java stored procedures, point-in-time recovery, asynchronous replication and nested transactions. PostgreSQL began in 1986 at the University of California, Berkeley. Its original author was Michael Stonebraker, the creator of the Ingres relational database management system. PostgreSQL is a credible competitor to proprietary enterprise databases such as Oracle. It is highly scalable, both in the volume of data it can manage and the number of concurrent users it can support. Some installations manage in excess of 4Tbytes of data.