9.1

VMware Customizations for Postgres 1
VMware vFabric Postgres (vPostgres) is an ACID-compliant, ANSI-SQL-compliant transactional, relational
database designed for the virtual environment and optimized for vSphere. It is based on the Postgres open-
source relational database and is compatible with Postgres SQL dialect and tools. Its features include elastic
database memory, database-aware high availability, and automated database configuration. vFabric Postgres
contains enhancements and customizations for Data Director.
Differences Between vFabric Postgres and PostgreSQL Databases
The VMware vFabric Postgres database includes memory, checksum, and performace features that are not
available on open source Postgres/PostgreSQL databases. The section describes the differences in more detail.
You can deploy a vPostgres database as a virtual applicance or using RPM files.
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Deploying a virtual applicance from a VMware Virtualization Platform results in an embedded vPostgres
deployment. This method creates a virtual machine with the operating system (SLES 11, sp1 64-bit Linux),
vPostgres server, and client preinstalled. The appliance version of the vFabric Postgres Standard Edition
database includes VMware virtualization technology.
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Using the -ivh command line option with RPM files to deploy a vPostgres stand-alone database results in
an embedded vPostgres deployment. In this option, you must create a virtual machine and install an SLES
11 (sp1) or RHEL 6.2 operating system followed by the -ivh commands mentioned above. You can use this
method to install the vPostgres server and client software.
vFabric Postgres Enhancements
VMware vFabric Postgres enhancements include elastic database memory, ease of tuning, checksums, and
configurable checkpoint intervals.
Elastic Database
Memory
Elastic database memory enables vPostgres to run with graceful performance
degradation under heavy over-commitment of memory. vPostgres participates
in memory resource management with the guest operating system and vSphere
Hypervisor to achieve elastic database memory.
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