IT Manager's Journal

Version 8.3 of PostgreSQL, the popular high-performance object-relational database management system, was released today. It includes nearly 300 patches, changes that will substantially accelerate transaction processing throughput, and a slew of new features.

BSD-licensed PostgreSQL has been in development for over 21 years and has contributors from 18 countries. Together, they have produced a version that now includes:

• * support for ANSI-standard SQL/XML, including XML export
• * GSSAPI and SSPI authentication support
• * a full text search tool
• * new data types, including UUIDs, ENUMs

Performance changes include: Checkpoint autotuning, faster LIKE/ILIKE comparisons, and faster searches for results with LIMIT. PostgreSQL's source code can also now be compiled with Microsoft's C++ compiler.

Developers recommend that users with very old versions of PostreSQL may run into upgrade issues and suggest users perform "extra testing" before upgrading production systems.