Re: What do Oracle, DB2, etc. actually *do*?

>
> - XML extensions
> - GIS extensions
> - Numerous Java-related extensions including a JMS implementation
> - Web application infrastructure
> - Additional tools for managing database instances
>
>A while back, we needed an Oracle 8i license for a project and ordered
>the "CD pack" which was a whole box full of CDs (including the one bit
>we needed) of all sorts of things they'd love to sell us.  It was
>close to 30 CDs of this and that.
>
>Oracle is spending billions per year on developers; while some of the
>results may be of dubious interest, it certainly leads to having a
>growing stack of CDs.
>
>
Oracle and DB2 also offer an ability to parallelize queries across
nodes, so that you can query extremely large (multi-TB) data sets quickly.

They also all market multimaster replication.

PostgreSQL is an excellent small-to-reasonably-large-database RDBMS.  If
you get into the 3-5 TB range and need fast access to all the data, or
if you need multi-master replication, you may need to look elsewhere,
depending on your application.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting