Given its powerful and advanced features, you may wonder how such a -valuable piece of software came to be both free and open source. As with -many other key open source projects, the answer starts at the University of -California at Berkeley (UCB).
-PostgreSQL, originally called Postgres, was created at -UCB by a computer science professor named Michael Stonebraker, -who went on to become the CTO of Informix Corporation. Stonebraker -started Postgres in 1986 as a followup project to its predecessor, Ingres, now -owned by Computer Associates. The name Postgres thus plays off of its predecessor (as -in "after Ingres"). Ingres, developed from 1977 to 1985, had been an exercise in -creating a database system according to classic RDBMS theory. Postgres, -developed between 1986-1994, was a project meant to break new ground in database -concepts such as exploration of "object relational" technologies.
-Stonebraker and his graduate students actively developed Postgres for -eight years. During that time, Postgres introduced rules, procedures, time -travel, extensible types with indices and object-relational concepts. Postgres -was later commercialized to become Illustra which was later bought by Informix -and integrated into its Universal Server. Informix was purchased by IBM in 2001 -for one billion -dollars.
-In 1995, two Ph.D. students from Stonebraker's lab, Andrew Yu and Jolly -Chen, replaced Postgres' POSTQUEL query language with an extended subset of -SQL. They renamed the system to Postgres95.
-In 1996, Postgres95 departed from academia and started a new life in the -open source world when a group of dedicated developers outside of Berkeley saw -the promise of the system, and devoted themselves to its continued -development. Contributing enormous amounts of time, skill, labor, and technical -expertise, this global development group radically transformed Postgres. Over -the next eight years, they brought consistency and uniformity to the code base, -created detailed regression tests for quality assurance, set up mailing lists -for bug reports, fixed innumerable bugs, added incredible new features, and -rounded out the system by filling various gaps such as documentation for -developers and users.
-The fruition of their labor was a new database that garnered a -reputation for rock solid stability. With the start of its new life in the open -source world, with many new features and enhancements, the database system took -its current name: PostgreSQL. ("Postgres" is still used as an easy-to-pronounce -nick-name.)
-PostgreSQL began at version 6.0, giving credit to its many years of prior -development. With the help of hundreds of developers from around the world, -the system was changed and improved in almost every area. Over the next four years -(versions 6.0 - 7.0), major improvements and new features were made such as: -
-Multiversion Concurrency Control (MVCC). - Table-level locking was replaced with a sophisticated multiversion concurrency - control system, which allows readers to continue reading consistent data - during writer activity and enables online (hot) backups while the database is - running.
Important SQL features. Many SQL enhancements - were made including subselects, defaults, constraints, primary keys, foreign - keys, quoted identifiers, literal string type coercion, type casting, and - binary and hexadecimal integer input among others.
Improved built-in types. New native types - were added including a wide-range of date/time types and additional geometric - types.
Speed. Major speed and performance increases - in the order of 20-40% were made, and backend start-up time was decreased by - 80%.
The four years following (versions 7.0 to 7.4) brought the Write-Ahead Log -(WAL), SQL schemas, prepared queries, outer joins, complex queries, SQL92 join -syntax, TOAST, IPv6 support, SQL-standard information schema, full-text -indexing, auto-vacuum, Perl/Python/TCL procedural languages, improved SSL -support, an optimizer overhaul, database statistics information, added security, -table functions, and logging enhancements and significant speed improvements, among -other things. A small measure of PostgreSQL's intensive development is reflected -in its release notes. -
Today, PostgreSQL's user base is larger than ever and includes a sizeable -group of large corporations who use it in demanding environments. Some of these -companies such as Afilias and Fujitsu have made significant -contributions to PostgreSQL's development. And, true to its roots, it -continues to improve in both sophistication and performance, now more than -ever. Version 8.0 is PostgreSQL's long awaited debut into the enterprise -database market, bringing features such as tablespaces, Java stored procedures, -point in time recovery, and nested transactions (savepoints). -With it came a long awaited feature --- a native Windows port.
--Many organizations, government agencies and companies use PostgreSQL. -You will find installations in ADP, CISCO, NTT Data, NOAA, Research In -Motion, The US Forestry Service and The American Chemical Society. -Today, it's rare to find a large corporation or government agency which -isn't using PostgreSQL in at least one department. -
If there were ever a time for you to seriously consider using PostgreSQL -to power your application or business, it would be now. -
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