PostgreSQL, Progress DB Now Supported on mrc’s m-Power

July 12, 2011 Alex Woodie

Users of mrc‘s m-Power application development tool can now deploy their creations atop the PostgreSQL or Progress OpenEdge databases, the vendor announced last week. The tool already supported most other major databases, including DB2/400.

The capability to support PostgreSQL is a major milestone for m-Power, a template-based Web application development tool that generates J2EE. While m-Power already supported the capability to run on and access a slew of popular databases, including DB2/400, DB2 for LUW, SQL Server, MySQL, the Oracle database, IMS, Access, and Informix, the addition of PostgreSQL support will give mrc more play in the open source world.

PostgreSQL, which was first released in 1988, has become one of the most prominent open source database management systems–particularly since Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL with its purchase of Sun Microsystems a few years ago. Indeed, while MySQL’s support for the IBM i operating system was met with lots of fanfare a few years back, Oracle’s decision to end support of MySQL on IBM i has cast some doubt whether the open source database movement would ever gain traction on the platform.

It appears that, in light of the questions over MySQL’s future under Oracle, PostgreSQL may have taken over as the poster child for open source databases, including on the IBM i server. In fact, the Young i Professionals user group recently posted a guide on its website that describes how to load the AIX version of PostgreSQL onto a PASE-equipped IBM i server. Many open source Web applications written in Perl, Python, and PHP are designed to work with PostgreSQL, making it fairly easy to get these apps up and running.

IBM i shops aren’t likely to deploy m-Power-developed apps on PostgreSQL running under IBM i when DB2/400 is around. But the new support for PostgreSQL (as well as Progress’s OpenEdge database) does give IBM i shops the capability to easily connect to other types of databases with their m-Power applications that may be running under IBM i, such as reporting applications.

Another use case for PostgreSQL or OpenEdge among mrc’s predominantly IBM i-using customer base involves acquisitions. The broad database support should make it easy for companies to integrate the disparate computer systems of companies that are acquired.

“This is an exciting new step forward,” Brian Crowley, mrc’s director of development, says in a press release. “Regardless of what database a company currently uses, additional database support opens up new options and flexibility for many customers.”