[threeseed]

The author is pretty misinformed about how enterprises work.

a) Security is critical. It routinely trumps common sense and evidence. And telling people "not to fall for it" is advice that will get you nowhere.

b) Vendor support is critical. And no your local mom+pop consulting shop doesn't count. PostgreSQL could really do with solid, global companies like Microsoft, Datastax, Mongo etc who offer training and proper SLAs.

[jordigh]

What vendor support do you get exactly from Microsoft? Their EULA typically has a SHOUTY CAPS NO WARRANTY CLAUSE, so what does the SLA cover? Have you successfully resorted to the SLA to handle problems you've had?

I'm honestly curious. I just don't know how SLAs work, and whom can you blame if you have problems with MS SQL.

[Spearchucker]

Vendor support from Microsoft is about requesting help with issues. You get x number of support calls, depending on what you paid. Microsoft has fixed service levels for that, and you've little option other than paying more money if you want a quicker turn-around.

SQL Server itself doesn't ship with an SLA.

You'd get that from your service provider or systems integrator, because the customer chooses her own service levels (determined by business continuity objectives). Her SP or SI (or in-house IT department) would then deploy SQL Server in a way intended to meet the required service level. Specifically, the customer might opt for five nines (99.999%) availability. Such a deployment doesn't look anything like one that must only be available from 8am to 5pm on weekdays - even though both SLAs are met using the same SQL Server code base from Microsoft (but on vastly different hardware and network configurations).

The availability associated with an SLA usually goes hand-in-hand with disaster recovery (recovery time objective, and recovery point objective[1]), but can also apply to support turn-around (a support request is triaged, and based on severity is resolved within the amount of time specified for that severity by the SLA). As mentioned, if I'm not mistaken Microsoft has fixed service levels for that. IIRC an MSDN subscription gets you a small number of free requests. An Enterprise Agreement gets you a whole bunch more.

There are many other quality objectives you can specify with an SLA, including efficiency (capacity), integrity (security), and robustness (stability) [2].

So unless you're hosted by Azure or have an Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft is rather unlikely to provide you with an SLA. And even then you'd be the one telling them what your service level requirement is. If Microsoft can't deliver on your service level requirements, you'd do it yourself, or get a systems integrator to do it for you.

[1] http://www.druva.com/blog/understanding-rpo-and-rto/

[2] https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=d8c54975-bd0a-410...

[WoodenChair]

> What vendor support do you get exactly from Microsoft? Their EULA typically has a SHOUTY CAPS NO WARRANTY CLAUSE, so what does the SLA cover?

Bringing up the "no warranty" clause is a total straw man argument. Almost every software license (whether proprietary or open source) has a no warranty clause.

[tracker1]

EnterpriseDB seems to be the corporate benefactor behind PostgreSQL, and is run by what looks to be a lot of former Redhat guys. There's definitely commercial support out there.

As a programmer, I would love to use PostgreSQL everywhere over all the options you mention... Mongo has a pretty decent replication/failover setup, better than MS-SQL imho, and MS-SQL being a close second... administering PostgreSQL for high availability seems like an exercise in frustration, with lots of after-thought bolted on solutions.

I think by the time we see either 9.6 or so, or 10.0 (depending on how versioning goes), with PL/v8 and sane replication/failover solution in the box, it'll become my db of choice.

Most of what I use MongoDB for today can be done almost as nicely in PostgreSQL, and the latter can do a lot the former would trip on.

[keithwarren]

As someone who has worked with PG, MSSQL, Oracle, MySQL and others for almost two decades - I can promise you the author is misinformed about more than just enterprise politics.

[angersock]

Would you care to elaborate on that?

[keithwarren]

see rest of comments, it is not taking long for people to point out the flaws in the OP

[UnoriginalGuy]

So that is a "no" then? You make a blatant argument from authority and then when asked to affirm your opinion with facts rather than claimed qualifications you refuse (saying "read the other posts" is a refusal if I've ever seen one).

[keithwarren]

In all honesty it would take hours to write a proper rebuttal. There are many factual errors but there are also many errors that are mostly incorrect. CSV import/export is one of the first things he calls out and he never mentions BCP or SSIS, which are the methods for CSV import in SQL Server. It would be like saying Apache does not support SSL - it is just factually wrong.

[autokad]

I've been using MS SQL Server for over 10 years, including versions as early as 2000. I have extensively used CSVs in every version

[rodgerd]

For B), EnterpriseDB look promising. Ex-Red Hatters, similar model.

[jackmaney]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=postgresql+professional+support