PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) created originally at University of California.

Its SQL implementation strongly conforms to the ANSI-SQL 92/99 standards supporting it. It has full support for triggers, views, queries, stored procedures, joins, multiple languages, among others. Some features of this Database include multi version concurrency control (MVCC), point in time recovery, tablespaces, replication (asynchronous), nested transaction, online backups, fault tolerance and many other sophisticated features to provide data integrity.

Some of the allowed maximum values offer big possibilities for huge database systems: unlimited maximum Database size, rows per table and indexes per table, or 32TB maximum for a table's size. The system supports SSL and IPv6 protocols. It also supports many data types, like arrays and XML among many others. Third party contributions are also important for this ORDBMS, because many of the tools to develop, access or use this database exist only because of them. The system also supports GIS (Geographical Information System) data and it can be used for mapping and localization purposes.

The current release includes many fixes reported by its contributors and some new features like full text search integration, support for SQL/XML standard, includes some new data types (enumerated, arrays of composite types, XML, Universal Unique Identifier), it improves logging and statics collections, and much more.

Its installation process is very easy to perform; moreover, some third party utilities and programs are included depending your requests or needs. The Stack Builder utility manages all the installations. Its GUI depends on how would you like to view your data; a nice program to view and manage your databases is pgAdmin III. Its documentation is very complete and detailed; you can find a lot of documentation in its website and included with the program. PostgreSQL works in Linux, UNIX and Windows platforms.