3. What are the differences between Tantor SE 17 and PostgreSQL 17#

3. What are the differences between Tantor SE 17 and PostgreSQL 17

3. What are the differences between Tantor SE 17 and PostgreSQL 17 #

3.2. Core improvements #

  • 64-bit transaction counter.

  • Autonomous transactions.

  • Optimized pglz data compression algorithm (~1.4 times).

  • libpq compression.

  • Optimized replication recovery process (fadvise on standby).

  • Expanded use of SIMD instructions. Enhancements planned for PostgreSQL 18 are already available in Tantor SE 17.

  • Optimization for linear search for ARM64 architecture processors.

  • When sending the WAL to the standby server, a checksum of the data blocks is verified.

  • Increased informative value of diagnostic information:

    • Diagnostics of internal DBMS errors (backtrace_on_internal_error parameter).

    • The informativeness of the DBMS server logs — the start messages contain additional diagnostic information.

    • The pg_controldata server application contains additional meta information about the edition and assembly to simplify the diagnosis of possible problems.

  • The maximum size of data in table cells supported by the pg_dump module is 2 GB.

  • Improved performance of operations involving temporary tables.

  • Enhanced pg_stat_statements for improved monitoring precision and performance:

    • Intelligent query normalization: system now masks temporary table and array names, enabling more accurate aggregation of statistics for structurally identical queries with varying parameters.

    • Sampling support: when enabled, sampling significantly reduces overhead under high load, minimizing the extension's impact on overall system performance.

  • Increased number of partitions in the shared buffers.

  • Improved planner behavior by default use of covering indexes with selectivity consideration.

  • enable_convert_exists_as_lateral_join setting, allowing the planner to convert EXISTS subqueries into LATERAL SEMI JOIN when possible for improve performance.

  • Deferred allocation of temporary tables using the enable_delayed_temp_file setting.

  • Accelerated execution of queries using the IN VALUES construct.

  • Improved planner behavior using the Join Predicate Pushdown technique.

  • Elimination of unnecessary joins when a table is joined with itself.

  • Precision statistics collection. Enables fine-grained control over statistics sampling for individual table columns using the ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN ... SET STAT MULTIPLIER command.

  • Support for OAuth 2.0 authentication. For more information, see the OAuth Support, OAuth Validator Modules and OAuth Base Validator.

  • Support for extensions and data types for compatibility with 1C.

  • Optimized operation of ANALYZE command for wide tables.

  • Optimized grouped queries typical for Month-End Closing operations in 1C:ERP.

  • A hash table to accelerate column name uniqueness checks during view deparsing.

  • Ability to skip catalog record locks for temporary tables when they are not required, reducing overhead when working with such objects.

3.3. Additional Supplied Utilities #

  • pg_diag_setup — automates the configuration of Tantor SE performance diagnostics extensions such as pg_store_plans, pg_stat_statements, pg_stat_kcache, auto_explain, pg_buffercache, and others. This simplifies the integration of database monitoring systems.

  • pg_sec_check — audits the security of Tantor SE database configurations. It automates the inspection of various security aspects: from server settings to database-specific parameters, and provides detailed reports on identified issues along with actionable recommendations for remediation.

  • pgcompacttable — reduces the size of bloated tables and indexes without using heavy locks. It is developed to reorganize data in tables and rebuild indexes in order to reclaim disk space without impacting database performance.

  • pgcopydb — automates running pg_dump | pg_restore between two running Postgres servers. To make a copy of a database to another server as quickly as possible, one would like to use the parallel options of pg_dump and still be able to stream the data to as many pg_restore jobs.

3.4. Additionally supplied modules (extensions) #

credcheck - provides few general credential checks, which will be evaluated during the user creation, during the password change and user renaming. By using this extension, we can define a set of rules to allow a specific set of credentials, and a set of rules to reject a certain type of credentials. This extension is developed based on the PostgreSQL's check_password_hook hook.

dbcopies_decoding - supports the database copy mechanism and data accelerator.

fasttrun - provides transaction unsafe function to truncate temporary tables without growing pg_class size. This module is required for 1C Enterprise support. Fast truncate operation is not transactional, so its results cannot be rolled back and become immediately visible in all sessions regardless of isolation level.

fulleq - provides additional equivalence operator for compatibility with Microsoft SQL Server. This module is required for 1C Enterprise support.

hypopg - adds support for hypothetical_indexes. A hypothetical or virtual index is an index that does not actually exist. Thus, no CPU, disk, or any other resource is required to create. It is useful to know if certain indexes can improve performance for problematic queries, as you can know if Tantor will use those indexes or not without having to spend resources creating them.

mchar - designed to improve 1C Enterprise support, most popular Russian CRM and ERP system. It implements types MCHAR and MVARCHAR, which are bug-to-bug compatible with MS SQL CHAR and VARCHAR respectively. Additionally, these types use the ICU library for comparison and case conversion, so their behavior is identical across different operating systems. Tantor DBMS also includes citext extension which provides types similar to MCHAR. But this extension doesn’t emulate MS-SQL behavior concerning end-of-value whitespace.

oauth_base_validator - implements a simple OAuth 2.0 token validator for built-in support of the Device Authorization Flow.

online_analyze - performs activation of statistic collection right after INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE/SELECT INTO for involved tables.

orafce - represents a set of functions that provide compatibility with Oracle databases.These functions allow simplifying of the migration to Tantor and reducing the expenses on applications' reconfiguration.

Optimized Row Columnar (ORC) - provides column method of data storage with a possibility of compression to decrease in-out volume and assure high performance. Applicable to append-only, e.g. data time series and displays of corporate storages.

page_repair - designed to repair separate corrupted pages using backup data from the replication server. It allows saving reparation time as it does not require reparation of all data, but separate pages.

pg_archive - allows you to automatically archive historical data from partitioned tables.

pg_background - allows executing commands in the background mode such as VACUUM and CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY from SQL along with launching autonomous transactions.

pg_cron - represents a cron-based job scheduler working within the database as an extension. It uses the same syntax as regular cron, but it allows scheduling Tantor DBMS commands directly from the database.

pg_hint_plan - allows configuring plans of SQL queries execution using so called "hints" in SQL comments. This gives an opportunity to compensate the scheduler errors occurring in critical cases.

pg_ivm - provides Incremental View Maintenance (IVM) feature for Tantor SE.

pg_partman - allows creating and managing both time-based and serial-based table partition sets.

pg_qualstats - saves statistic data on found predicates in WHERE operators and JOIN operations. This allows analysing the most frequent qualifiers (predicates) in the database, and also to identify correlated columns by defining which columns are most frequently requested together.

pg_query_id - allows to manipulate aspects of query id computation.

pg_repack - removes bloat from tables and indexes, and optionally restores the physical order of clustered indexes. Unlike CLUSTER and VACUUM FULL it works online, without holding an exclusive lock on the processed tables during processing.

pg_stat_advisor - allows to analyze query performance and create additional statistics to improve query plan.

pg_stat_kcache - gathers statistics about real reads and writes done by the filesystem layer.

pg_store_plans - provides the means to keep track of the execution plan statistics for all SQL statements executed by the Tantor server.

pg_tde - implements Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) at the storage level. It does not encrypt data in memory or during transmission over the network.

pg_throttle - allows you to limit the speed of query execution.

pg_trace - provides an opportunity for in-depth analysis and profiling of SQL queries, which is especially relevant for users of the 1C platform.

pg_uuidv7 - provides support for working with the UUIDv7 data type.

pg_variables - provides functionality to work with variables of different types in the current user session.

pg_wait_sampling - provides information about current waiting event for a certain process. However, to collect a descriptive statistics of server behaviour a user must repeatedly collect the current waiting event. This module represents an extension for collecting sample statistics of waiting events that prevent needless sampling of the current event waiting.

pgaudit - provides detailed session and/or object audit logging via the standard Tantor DBMS logging facility. The goal of the pgAudit is to provide Tantor DBMS users with capability to produce audit logs often required to comply with government, financial, or ISO certifications.

pgauditlogtofile - is an addon to pgAudit than will redirect audit log lines to an independent file, instead of using PostgreSQL server logger. This will allow us to have an audit file that we can easily rotate without polluting server logs with those messages. Audit logs in heavily used systems can grow very fast. This extension allows to automatically rotate the files based in a number of minutes.

pgl_ddl_deploy - is an extension for sending DDL commands to a replica server during logical replication.

pgq - provides generic, high-performance lockless queue with simple API based on SQL functions.

pgsql-http - allows making a trigger that calls a web service available to return a result, or makes the service update according to the new state of the database.

plantuner - allows to use planner hints.

transp_anon (transparent anonymization) - is an extension to mask or replace personally identifiable information or commercially sensitive data from a Tantor SE database.

vector - allows to search vector similarity.

wal2json - is an output plugin for logical decoding. It means that the plugin have access to tuples produced by INSERT and UPDATE. Also, UPDATE/DELETE old row versions can be accessed depending on the configured replica identity. Changes can be consumed using the streaming protocol (logical replication slots) or by a special SQL API.

3.5. Additionally supplied programs #

  • Tantor Platform: full-featured modular platform for administration and monitoring of Tantor RDMS and most PostgreSQL based clusters. The platform simplifies daily RDBMS operation with significant impact on the RDBMS management simplicity. The software functionality includes: smart and simple user interface, cluster automatic adaptive tuning, system overview, alerts and monitoring, automatic health checks and schema audit, maintenance tasks resolution through the GUI, advanced query profiling, and administering multiple servers in one place;

  • pg_anon: is a standalone Python program to work with Tantor RDMS or PostgreSQL based DB to perform data masking and anonymization during data migration between production and test environments;

  • wal-g: is a tool for making encrypted, compressed Tantor SE backups (full and incremental) and push/fetch them to/from storage without saving it on your filesystem;

  • pg_configurator: is a PostgreSQL configuration tool;

  • pg_cluster: is an ansible playbook for PostgreSQL high availability cluster on Patroni.

3.6. Programmatic Interfaces for Various Languages #

Tantor SE provides a wide range of drivers and libraries to interact with the database from various programming languages and environments. The following sections outline the main interfaces and their respective tools.

3.6.1. C/C++ #

  • libpq: The primary C library for Tantor SE client programs. It allows sending queries, receiving results, and managing connections.

  • libpqxx: A C++ wrapper over libpq, offering a more modern and user-friendly interface for C++ developers.

3.6.2. Java/JDBC #

  • PostgreSQL JDBC Driver: The official JDBC driver that enables Java applications to interact with Tantor SE databases using the standard JDBC API.

3.6.3. .NET #

  • Npgsql: An open-source .NET Data Provider for PostgreSQL. It allows .NET applications to use ADO.NET to connect to Tantor SE, run queries, and retrieve data.

3.6.4. ODBC #

  • psqlODBC: The official PostgreSQL ODBC driver providing connectivity for applications and tools using ODBC interfaces.

3.6.5. Perl #

  • DBD::Pg: A Perl DBI-compliant module for Tantor SE. It integrates seamlessly with the Perl DBI framework for database interactions.

3.6.6. Python #

  • psycopg2/psycopg: Widely used Python adapters implementing the Python DB-API specification. They provide a robust and efficient way to execute queries, handle transactions, and manage connections.

  • pg8000: A pure-Python alternative adapter that also supports the DB-API standard.

3.6.7. Ruby #

  • pg gem: The official Ruby driver for PostgreSQL, providing a native interface to execute queries and process results.

3.6.8. Tcl #

  • pgtcl/pgtcl-ng: Tcl extensions enabling connections to Tantor SE, execution of queries, and management of query results within Tcl scripts.

3.7. Release Notes #

The first release of Tantor SE is 17.5.0. Significant changes can be found on the related page.

All other changes see in Release Notes.