CHAPTER 28

Administering Relational Database

Services

IN THIS CHAPTER

A   Brief   Review  of  Database    Basics

Choosing    a   Database:   MySQL   Versus  PostgreSQL

Configuring MySQL

Configuring PostgreSQL

Database    Clients

References

This chapter is an introduction to MySQL and PostgreSQL, two database

systems that are available in the Ubuntu repositories. In this chapter, you learn
what these systems do, how the two programs compare, and how to consider
their advantages and disadvantages. This information can help you choose
and deploy the one that best suits your organization’s database needs.

SIMILAR TO  MYSQL

In  April   2009,   Oracle  announced   it  was buying  Sun Microsystems,   which

owned   MySQL.  The deal    was completed   in  January 2010.   Since   then,   at

least   two groups  have    forked  the code    to  ensure  that    the database    stays   free

and open    source  while   still   in  active  development.    These   groups  have

released    and are working on  MariaDB (https://mariadb.org)   and Percona

Server  (http://www.percona.com/software/percona-server).   We  suggest

keeping an  eye on  these   projects    and other   potential   replacements    for

MySQL   in  case    Oracle  decides that    the free    MySQL   is  too much    of  a

competitor  to  its paid    database    offerings   and kills   or  weakens the project.    It

is  interesting to  note    that    some    pretty  big Linux   distributions   and

organizations   have    already switched    away    from    MySQL,  such    as  Fedora,