Is there an alternative to giants of the market of DBMS?

Not uncommon to hear the view that there are such categories FOR which free software can never be an alternative to proprietary products. Often in an example, given any complex, highly specialized, vocational programs. I don't know how true this opinion, but some of the above categories, it seems, can be deleted.

In a report recently held CNews Forum I saw "DBMS for enterprises" list, which will always remain proprietary. I can't agree with this thesis, so I wrote a little article.

is There an alternative to giants of the market of DBMS?

Today free software is important in almost all aspects of it, but there are still areas in which “rule” proprietary products. One such area is corporate DBMS. This segment of the market is almost completely controlled by three giants: IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. But really there is no alternative to proprietary DBMS at the enterprises?

At the end of October, Moscow was visited by Bruce Momjian (Bruce Momjian), the leader of community PostgreSQL and architect, database company EnterpriseDB. Bruce deals with databases and related developments for over 20 years. Since 1996, he works with PostgreSQL, and in 2000 he published his book "PostgreSQL: Introduction and Concepts". We discussed with Bruce the prospects of open DBMS and, in particular, PostgreSQL in the corporate market of Russia.

Since 2004, the global market for corporate DBMS has been a noticeable trend towards open products. Forrester Research estimated that by 2008, 30% of businesses had in one way or another to use Open Source DBMS. By 2008, this trend came to our country. According to Gartner, two years ago, the use in Russia of the open source database system has increased 2.5 times (from 25% to 63%), which allowed to talk about what a database management system (DBMS) are the fastest-growing form of free software in Russia.

But what about open DBMS in Russia now? According to Bruce, there is significant growth in corporate use of open DBMS, but it is difficult to monitor and evaluate. And on characteristics such as the ability to increase functionality and improvements for integration with third-party software, open DBMS, in fact, have no analogues. In particular, PostgreSQL is used in a large number of niche and specialized solutions. Many companies have a private (or custom) development, in which open products, thanks to the free and low cost maintenance, very profitable.

Another area of possible influx of potential users — migrate from proprietary DBMS to open. According to Forrester, 85% of corporate customers use less than 30% of the functionality of an enterprise DBMS. If you look at the Russian market of a DBMS, it is as follows: Oracle 69.9 per cent, MS SQL — 8,5%, IBM DB2 7.2 per cent. These three it-the Corporation accounts for nearly 90% of the supply of the DBMS. But today there are solutions for almost automatic migration from Oracle to EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus Advanced Server, due to the high compatibility between them. Also there is a quite famous Russian project SELTA@etersoft, which allows you to use PostgreSQL in applications developed for MS SQL.

Thus, due to migration with Oracle and MS SQL for about 80% of the market of DBMS can be relatively painless to move on to solutions built on a PostgreSQL database. And although the products Etersoft and EnterpriseDB are not free, they significantly reduce total cost of ownership by reducing the cost of royalties. And in the case of developing custom-made using PostgreSQL as a functional and affordable DBMS is almost invaluable.
So is there an alternative to such DBMS as Oracle and MS SQL? Bruce Momjian answers unequivocally: "Yes, of course. It is the company EnterpriseDB, which I work, has long been successful in helping many of its clients to use PostgreSQL in large, industrial systems."

Article based on information from habrahabr.ru