FAST is previewing its latest Postgres high availability initiative, HiAv Solution for Postgres at OpenCeBIT in Sydney, Australia on May 20^th, 21^st and 22^nd. HiAv solution features easily administered Switchover, Failover, Load Balancing and Monitoring capabilities for an Enterprise-grade high availability and disaster recovery Postgres system.

Over time, many businesses progress from initially using Postgres with new or non-critical applications to a more full-blooded adoption of it as a key strategic element of their IT infrastructure. In some instances, the original plan was to transition from Postgres to a 'brand-name' as soon as the application's worth to the business is clear and established – putting it on a more 'solid footing' so to speak. At FAST we meet businesses facing this scenario from time to time, and it is almost always the case that, when the moment comes, there is no reasonable business justification to migrate away from Postgres. Because it just works, and because it scales, and because the cost of migration can't quite justify the required licence-cost inflated capital expenditure, Postgres stays put.

The main thrust of the FSP team at Fujitsu Australia Software Technology (FAST) is to promote PostgreSQL for business use. I have yet to meet someone who doubts PostgreSQL’s enterprise pedigree – that is, it’s ability to perform cost-effectively as a major component of a mid to large sized organisation’s most critical business IT system. This is the ‘acid test’ for a business owner (or the responsible CIO) and arguments about TCO, licencing or even open source itself may be less of a consideration.