Re: Great Bridge benchmark results for Postgres, 4 others

> Greetings all,
>
> At long last, here are the results of the benchmarking tests that
> Great Bridge conducted in its initial exploration of PostgreSQL.  We
> held it up so we could test the shipping release of the new
> Interbase 6.0.  This is a news release that went out today.
>
> The release is also on our website at
> http://www.greatbridge.com/news/p_081420001.html.  Graphics of the
> AS3AP and TPC-C test results are at
> http:/www.greatbridge.com/img/as3ap.gif and
> http://www.greatbridge.com/img/tpc-c.gif respectively.

This looks great.  Better than I would have expected.  However I have some
concerns.

1) Using only ODBC drivers.  I don't know how much of an impact a driver can
make but it would seem that using native drivers would shutdown one source
of objections.

2) Postgres has the 'vacuum' process which is typically run nightly which if
not accounted for in the benchmark would give Postgres an artificial edge.
I don't know how you would account for it but in fairness I think it should
be acknowledged.  Do the other big databases have similar maintenance
issues?

3) The test system has 512MB RAM.  Given the licensing structure and high
licencing fees, users have an incentive to use much larger amounts of RAM.
Someone who can only afford 512MB probably can't afford the big names
anyway.

4) The artical does not mention the Speed or Number of CPUs or anything
about the disks other than size.  I can halfway infer that they are SCSI but
how are they layed out.

I am not trying to tear the benchmark down.  Just wanting it more immune to
such attempts.