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Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 08:56:16 -0700
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From: jean@ratatosk.css.gov (Jean Anderson)
Subject: Re: MIRO
To: postgres@postgres.berkeley.edu
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bunting@pangaea.dme.nt.gov.au (Chris Bunting 61-89-895442) writes:
> ...                                  Mr Stonebraker said that there was a \
> commercial version of portgres available called MIRO.
> ...
>If so, is it true? 

Yes; it's true. It's out in beta. I understand they plan on going production 
in mid August.

>                   How do a get a copy?

     Miro Systems, Inc.
     2000 Powell Street, Suite 1405
     Emeryville, CA 94603
     USA
     (510)652-8000

>                                        How good is it?

Here are a few impressions from looking at the user guide while the 
purchase order wheels at my company grind.

I haven't paid much attention to the snazzy side; I've been focusing on 
"libmiro" to make sure the call interface has the hooks we require. My 
initial impressions from the docs are that it has retained the "best" of
Postgres, while adding the "production" touches I expect in a commercial 
product:

     o	Error handling is clean. You can snag both the error message and
	an error code.
     o	Transaction management is ACID ("atomic, consistent, isolatable,
	durable"). There are a couple books out that describe ACID
	in excrutiating detail, if anybody is interested in references.
     o	Connect services are good (some carry-overs from Postgres, some
	new features):
	- They have user names and passwords.
	- You can do multiple, concurrent connects. 
	- They have a re-connect, which is a nice touch. We have coded the
	  same thing for the other databases we work with, but we lose all 
	  database resources associated with the broken connect.
	- You can verify the connection is still live (of the products I 
	  work with, only Sybase can do that).
     o	Query processing (especially results handling) is straight forward.
     o	The docs look pretty good.

And, of course, it talks SQL, important to the SQL-ers I work with.

I'm not doing justice to the product by incompletely highlighting a few nit 
picky things; but Lance Gatrell made a good point in some recent email:

> I would not use Postgres in a delivered product.  .... Its not appropriate
> for critical applications

I quibble about what is meant by "critical"; but the point is well taken.
I am wildly enthusiastic about Postgres functionality. But, at the risk of 
offending all the hard-working Postgres developers, I would hesitate 
installing it at remote, database-novice, 7x24 sites.  I'm hoping Miro can 
satisfy those "production" needs.

Remember, these impressions are based on docs; they are not based on "hands 
on" experience.  These are my opinions, not my employer's, I don't work for 
Miro, #include <disclaimer>, etc. etc.

 - jean

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| SAIC Open Systems Division, MS A2-F                                   |
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