Postgres Plus Advanced Server v9 (9.0.4.14) Release Notes Release Notes Postgres Plus® Advanced Server v9 (9.0.4.14) Table of Contents I. Release Summary.............................................................................................................................................1 II. PostgreSQL v9.x Integrated Features ..............................................................................................................2 III. Additional Performance and High Availability Enhancements .......................................................................4 IV. Oracle Compatibility / Capability Features .....................................................................................................6 V. Enterprise Module Updates ............................................................................................................................9 VI. Security .........................................................................................................................................................11 VII. Installers........................................................................................................................................................11 VIII. StackBuilder Plus...........................................................................................................................................13 IX. Internationalization / Localization ................................................................................................................13 X. Service Pack Maintenance.............................................................................................................................14 XI. Documentation Updates...............................................................................................................................18 XII. Upgrade Paths...............................................................................................................................................18 XIII. Platform Support ..........................................................................................................................................21 XIV. System Requirements...................................................................................................................................22 XV. Known Issues ................................................................................................................................................22 XVI. How to Report Problems ..............................................................................................................................23 I. Release Summary EnterpriseDB continues to advance its position as the leader in delivering the innovation and low cost of open source based databases with commercial quality, compatibility, scalability, and performance in this latest release of Postgres Plus Advanced Server v9. The major highlights of this release are: 1) the Copyright 2011 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Page: 1 Postgres Plus Advanced Server v9 (9.0.4.14) Release Notes integration of all PostgreSQL v9 features, 2) our 7th generation of Oracle features, 3) performance and data loading improvements, and 4) Microsoft SQL Server replication support using xDB Replication Server, and 5) foundational work for the future release of PostgreSQL Enterprise Manager. II. PostgreSQL v9.x Integrated Features A. Streaming Replication Standard Server now has built-in native replication. Standby servers can now connect to a master server and be sent the binary logs to stay updated for improved High Availability setups. Streaming Replication is an asynchronous mechanism where the standby server lags behind the master. But unlike other replication methods, this lag is extremely short, and can be as little as a single transaction, depending on network speed, database activity, and Hot Standby settings. Also, the load on the master for any standby server is minimal, allowing a single master to support many standby servers. B. Hot Standby Utilizing Streaming Replication (or log shipping), Hot Standby allows continuous archive standby servers to execute read-only queries. This feature is similar to Data Guard from Oracle®. A Hot Standby server can deliver a variety of benefits including: a) faster OLTP and reporting performance by offloading reports to a standby server, b) more efficient warm standby servers for improved High Availability, c) testing systems in parallel with the same data, and d) migrating seed data to a new system. The net effect is to support a single master with multiple read-only slave servers. C. Easier Object Permissions Management GRANT/REVOKE IN SCHEMA supports mass permissions changes on existing objects, while ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES allows control of privileges for objects created in the future. Large objects (BLOBs) now support privilege management as well. D. Faster VACUUM FULL. The implementation of this command now rewrites the entire table and indexes, rather than moving individual rows to compact space. It is substantially faster in most cases, and no longer results in index bloat. E. New Trigger Features Advanced Server now has SQL-standard-compliant per-column triggers, which only fire when a specific column is explicitly UPDATED. They allow you to avoid adding lots of conditional logic and value comparisons in your trigger code. Another new trigger feature is WHEN triggers for more control over Copyright 2011 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Page: 2 Postgres Plus Advanced Server v9 (9.0.4.14) Release Notes when triggers fire. This can dramatically decrease the number of trigger executions and reduce CPU load on the database server. F. Exclusion Constraints These provide a generalized version of unique constraints, allowing enforcement of complex conditions with a simple option to an ALTER TABLE command. For example, an exclusion constraint can be used to automatically reject a room reservation record INSERT whose time slot overlaps or conflicts with an existing reservation record, all without any complex coding or setup. G. Deferrable Unique Constraints Mass updates to unique keys are now possible without difficult work-arounds. Checking of constraints that are deferrable are postponed until the end of the statement or transaction. Currently, UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY, EXCLUDE, and REFERENCES (foreign key) constraints support this feature. H. New and Enhanced Security features These include RADIUS authentication, LDAP authentication improvements, and a new contrib module passwordcheck for testing password strength. I. Enhanced Stored Procedure Support The DO statement supports ad-hoc or "anonymous" code blocks. Functions can now be called using named parameters. PL/pgSQL is now installed by default, and PL/Perl and PL/Python have been enhanced in several ways, including support for Python3. J. hstore Improvements Improvements include: a) the addition of new functions and operators, b) the removal of size limits for Keys and values, and c) GROUP BY and DISTINCT can now be used. These feature additions make hstore a fully functional key-value store embedded in PostgreSQL. K. Enhanced Reporting Queries New features include additional windowing options (PRECEDING and FOLLOWING) and the ability to control the order in which values are fed to aggregate functions. L. High-Performance LISTEN/NOTIFY This new implementation of LISTEN/NOTIFY has Pending events now stored in a memory-based queue rather than a table. Also, a "payload" string can be sent with each event, rather than transmitting just an event name as before. M. Multiple Performance Enhancements Copyright 2011 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Page: 3 Postgres Plus Advanced Server v9 (9.0.4.14) Release Notes For specific types of queries, including elimination of unnecessary joins, performance has been significantly increased. This helps optimize some automatically generated queries, such as those produced by object-relational mappers (ORMs). N. EXPLAIN Enhancements The output is now available in JSON, XML, or YAML format, and includes buffer utilization and other data not previously available. O. New pg_upgrade contrib Module Removes the need to dump/restore a database to upgrade to a new software version. Supports incredibly fast in-place upgrades from 8.3 or 8.4 to 9.0. See the Upgrade Paths section below. For a complete list of all new features and details on individual features please visit: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/release-9-0.html#AEN99033 III. Additional Performance and High Availability Enhancements A. PL/pgSQL Code Profiler (7656) The PL/pgSQL and SPL Code Profiler is a plugin that instruments PL/pgSQL (and SPL) functions, triggers, and procedures. The profiler provides in-depth characteristics of commands run against the database to help identify and remedy performance bottlenecks as well as inform you for writing new optimized code against the database. When the profiler is loaded into a backend (and enabled), it intercepts every PL/pgSQL statement executed and writes performance information about each statement into a table of your choosing. For each statement, the profiler records: • execution count (number of times each statement is executed) • total execution time (how long did we spend executing each statement?) • longest execution time (how long did the slowest iteration take?) • number of scans (total number of sequential and indexed scans) • blocks fetched • blocks hit (blocks found in buffer pool)