# Database > Articles about the database industry - trends, news, research, concepts, and best practices --- LLMS index: [llms.txt](/llms.txt) --- Section pages: - [Two Months into Maintaining a MinIO Fork](/blog/db/minio-promise-kept/): Two months after forking MinIO, pgsty/minio ships patches for four CVEs and related security issues. No new features, just working builds, a restored console, and timely security fixes. - [Palantir's 'Ontology' Hustle](/blog/db/ontology-bullshit/): Ontology is database modeling. The word's only function is to make people who don't understand databases think they're looking at something new — and happily pay a thousand times more for something old. - [MinIO Is Dead, Long Live MinIO](/blog/db/minio-resurrect/): MinIO's repo is officially archived and abandoned. And how AI Agents helped bring MinIO back from the dead. - [When Coding Becomes Cheap, What Still Matters?](/blog/db/try-codex/): Codex 5.3 xHigh pushed my workflow past a tipping point: writing code is no longer the scarce resource. The real leverage is design quality and engineering acceptance. This is the practical loop I use to ship reliable software with AI agents. - [The Agent Moat: Runtime](/blog/db/agent-moat/): A mediocre local who knows the terrain beats a genius parachuted into unknown territory. Intelligence without context is idle. An agent without a runtime is vapor. - [AI Ripped the Skin Off Software](/blog/db/saas-burn-pg-rise/): Software stocks are melting down. Who survives? Who rises? AI stripped away software's skin, exposing the database skeleton underneath. The market isn't panic-selling — it's repricing. - [New Programmers in the AI Era: Where Do You Go?](/blog/db/ai-survival/): Should we still hire fresh grads? Squeezed between AI and senior devs, what's the play for new programmers? Master the right tools, take initiative, find the right mentor. - [The Great Software Meltdown: When Translation Layers Get Squashed](/blog/db/neo-software/): SaaS and workflow software are dead. From APPs & GUIs to Agents, Databases, and CLI. - [Agent OS: We're Building DOS Again](/blog/db/agent-os/): LLM = CPU. Context = RAM. Database = Disk. Agent = App. The mapping is surprisingly clean. And if OS history is any guide, we may know what comes next — and what's still missing. - [Claude Code Observability](/blog/db/claude-observability/): Export Claude Code's OTEL logs and metrics to Victoria stack, visualize with Grafana dashboards. - [Claude Code Quick Start: Using Alternative LLMs at 1/10 the Cost](/blog/db/claude-code-intro/): How to install and use Claude Code? How to achieve similar results at 1/10 of Claude's cost with alternative models? A one-liner to get CC up and running! - [Data 2025: Year in Review with Mike Stonebraker](/blog/db/db-year-review-2025/): A conversation between Mike Stonebraker (Turing Award Winner, Creator of PostgreSQL), Andy Pavlo (Carnegie Mellon), and the DBOS team. - [What Database Does AI Agent Need?](/blog/db/agent-native-db/): The bottleneck for AI agents isn't in database engines but in upper-layer integration. Muscle memory, associative memory, and trial-and-error courage will be key. - [MySQL and Baijiu: The Internet’s Obedience Test](/blog/db/mysql-baijiu/): MySQL is to the internet what baijiu is to China: harsh, hard to swallow, yet worshipped because culture demands obedience. Both are loyalty tests—will you endure discomfort to fit in? - [Victoria: The Observability Stack That Slaps the Industry](/blog/db/victoria-stack/): VictoriaMetrics is brutally efficient—using a fraction of Prometheus + Loki’s resources for multiples of the performance. Pigsty v4 swaps to the Victoria stack; here’s the beta for anyone eager to try it. - [MinIO Is Dead. Who Picks Up the Pieces?](/blog/db/minio-alternative/): MinIO just entered maintenance mode. What replaces it? Can RustFS step in? I tested the contenders so you don’t have to. - [MinIO is Dead](/blog/db/minio-is-dead/): MinIO announces that it is entering maintenance mode: the dragon-slayer has become the dragon. This is how MinIO transformed from an open-source S3 alternative into just another commercial software company. - [When Answers Become Abundant, Questions Become the New Currency](/blog/db/ai-question/): Your ability to ask questions—and your taste in what to ask—determines your position in the AI era. When answers become commodities, good questions become the new wealth. We are living in the moment this prophecy comes true. - [On Trusting Open-Source Supply Chains](/blog/db/tuna-mirror-site/): In serious production you can’t rely on an upstream that explicitly says “no guarantees.” When someone says “don’t count on me,” the right answer is “then I’ll run it myself.” - [Don't Run Docker Postgres for Production!](/blog/db/no-docker-pg/): Tons of users running the official docker postgres image got burned during recent minor version upgrades. A friendly reminder: think twice before containerizing production databases. - [DDIA 2nd Edition, Chinese Translation](/blog/db/ddia-v2/): The second edition of Designing Data-Intensive Applications has released ten chapters. I translated them into Chinese and rebuilt a clean Hugo/Hextra web version for the community. - [Column: Database Guru](/blog/db/guru/): The database world is full of hype and marketing fog. This column cuts through it with blunt commentary on industry trends and product reality. - [Dongchedi Just Exposed “Smart Driving.” Where’s Our Dongku-Di?](/blog/db/car-autopilot-test/): Imagine a “closed-course” shootout for domestic databases and clouds, the way Dongchedi just humiliated 30+ autonomous cars. This industry needs its own stress test. - [Google AI Toolbox: Production-Ready Database MCP is Here?](/blog/db/google-mcp/): Google recently launched a database MCP toolbox, perhaps the first production-ready solution. - [Where Will Databases and DBAs Go in the AI Era?](/blog/db/ai-dba-job/): Who will be revolutionized first - OLTP or OLAP? Integration vs specialization, how to choose? Where will DBAs go in the AI era? Feng's views from the HOW 2025 conference roundtable, organized and published. - [Stop Arguing, The AI Era Database Has Been Settled](/blog/db/db-for-ai/): The database for the AI era has been settled. Capital markets are making intensive moves on PostgreSQL targets, with PG having become the default database for the AI era. - [Open Data Standards: Postgres, OTel, and Iceberg](/blog/db/open-data-standard/): Three emerging standards in the data world: Postgres, OpenTelemetry, and Iceberg. Postgres is already the de facto standard. - [The Lost Decade of Small Data](/blog/db/smalldata-decade/): If DuckDB had launched in 2012, the great migration to distributed analytics might never have happened. Data isn't that big after all. - [Scaling Postgres to the Next Level at OpenAI](/blog/db/openai-pg/) - [How Many Shops Has etcd Torched?](/blog/db/bad-etcd/): Plenty. If you’re rolling your own Kubernetes, odds are you’ll crash because etcd ships with a 2 GB time bomb. - [In the AI Era, Software Starts at the Database](/blog/db/ai-agent-era/): Future software = Agent + Database. No middle tiers, just agents issuing CRUD. Database skills age well, and PostgreSQL is poised to be the agent-era default. - [MySQL vs. PostgreSQL @ 2025](/blog/db/mysql-vs-pgsql/): A 2025 reality check on where PostgreSQL stands relative to MySQL across features, performance, quality, and ecosystem. - [Database Planet Collision: When PG Falls for DuckDB](/blog/db/pg-kiss-duckdb/): If you ask me, we’re on the brink of a cosmic collision in database-land, and Postgres + DuckDB is the meteor we should all be watching. - [Comparing Oracle and PostgreSQL Transaction Systems](/blog/db/oracle-pg-xact/): The PG community has started punching up: Cybertec’s Laurenz Albe breaks down how Oracle’s transaction system stacks against PostgreSQL. - [Database as Business Architecture](/blog/db/db-is-the-arch/): Databases are the core of business architecture, but what happens if we go further and let databases become the business architecture itself? - [7 Databases in 7 Weeks (2025)](/blog/db/7-week-7-db/): Is PostgreSQL the king of boring databases? Here are seven databases worth studying in 2025: PostgreSQL, SQLite, DuckDB, ClickHouse, FoundationDB, TigerBeetle, and CockroachDB—each deserving a week of deep exploration. - [Solving Poker 24 with a Single SQL Query](/blog/db/poker-24/): An interesting but tricky puzzle: solving the 24 game with SQL. The PostgreSQL solution. - [Self-Hosting Supabase on PostgreSQL](/blog/db/supabase/) - [Modern Hardware for Future Databases](/blog/db/future-hardware/): A survey on how hardware developments affect database design, covering key advancements in networking, storage, and computing. - [Can MySQL Still Catch Up with PostgreSQL?](/blog/db/can-mysql-catchup/): Percona founder Peter Zaitsev discusses whether MySQL can still keep up with PostgreSQL. His views largely represent the MySQL communitys perspective. - [Open-Source "Tyrant" Linus's Purge](/blog/db/linus-ban-ru/): The Linux community is essentially imperial — and Linus himself is the earliest and most successful technical dictator. People are used to Linus's generosity but forget this point. - [Optimize Bio Cores First, CPU Cores Second](/blog/db/bio-core-cpu-core/): Programmers are expensive, scarce biological computing cores, the anchor point of software costs — please prioritize optimizing biological cores before optimizing CPU cores. - [MongoDB Has No Future: Good Marketing Can't Save a Rotten Mango](/blog/db/bad-mongo/): MongoDB has a terrible track record on integrity, lackluster products and technology, gets beaten by PG in correctness, performance, and functionality, with collapsing developer reputation, declining popularity, stock price halving, and expanding losses. Provocative marketing against PG can't save it with "good marketing." - [MongoDB: Now Powered by PostgreSQL?](/blog/db/mongo-powered-by-pg/): MongoDB 3.2's analytics subsystem turned out to be an embedded PostgreSQL database? A whistleblowing story from MongoDB's partner about betrayal and disillusionment. - [Switzerland Mandates Open-Source for Government Software](/blog/db/oss-gov/): Switzerland's government leads the way with open source legislation, showing IT developing countries how to ensure software sovereignty and control. True autonomy and control stem from "open source communities," not some "nationalist" style "domestic software." - [MySQL is dead, Long live PostgreSQL!](/blog/db/mysql-is-dead/): This July, MySQL 9.0 was finally released—a full eight years after its last major version, 8.0 (@2016-09). - [CVE-2024-6387 SSH Vulnerability Fix](/blog/db/cve-2024-6387/): This vulnerability affects EL9, Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12. Users should promptly update OpenSSH to fix this vulnerability. - [Can Oracle Still Save MySQL?](/blog/db/can-oracle-save-mysql/): Percona founder Peter Zaitsev publicly expressed disappointment with MySQL and Oracle, criticizing the declining performance with newer versions. - [Oracle Finally Killed MySQL](/blog/db/oracle-kill-mysql/): Peter Zaitsev, founder of Percona, criticizes how Oracles actions and inactions have killed MySQL. About 15 years after acquiring Sun and MySQL. - [MySQL Performance Declining: Where is Sakila Going?](/blog/db/sakila-where-are-you-going/): Higher MySQL versions mean worse performance? Percona monitoring shows slow migration from 5.7 to 8.x. PostgreSQL is pulling ahead. - [Can Chinese Domestic Databases Really Compete?](/blog/db/db-china/): Friends often ask me, **can Chinese domestic databases really compete?** To be honest, **it's a question that offends people**. So let's try speaking with data - I hope the charts provided in this article can help readers understand the database ecosystem landscape and establish more accurate proportional awareness. - [The $20 Brother PolarDB: What Should Databases Actually Cost?](/blog/db/cheap-polar/): Today we discuss the fair pricing of commercial databases, open-source databases, cloud databases, and domestic Chinese databases. - [Redis Going Non-Open-Source is a Disgrace to "Open-Source" and Public Cloud](/blog/db/redis-oss/): Redis "going non-open source" is not a disgrace to Redis, but a disgrace to "open source/OSI" and even more so to public cloud. What truly matters has always been software freedom, while open source is just one means to achieve software freedom. - [How Can MySQL's Correctness Be This Garbage?](/blog/db/bad-mysql/): MySQL's transaction ACID has flaws and doesn't match documentation promises. This may lead to serious correctness issues - use with caution. - [Database in K8S: Pros & Cons](/blog/db/db-in-k8s/) - [Are Specialized Vector Databases Dead?](/blog/db/svdb-is-dead/): Vector storage and retrieval is a real need, but specialized vector databases are already dead. Small needs are solved by OpenAI directly, standard needs are captured by existing mature databases with vector extensions. The ecological niche left for specialized vector databases might support one company, but trying to build an industry around AI stories is impossible. - [Are Databases Really Being Strangled?](/blog/db/db-choke/): Many "domestic databases" are just shoddy, inferior products that can't be helped. Xinchuang domestic OS/databases are essentially **IT pre-made meals in schools**. Users hold their noses while migrating, developers pretend to work hard, and everyone plays along with leaders who neither understand nor care about technology. The infrastructure software industry isn't being strangled by anyone - the real chokehold comes from the so-called "insiders." - [Which EL-Series OS Distribution Is Best?](/blog/db/rhel-compatibility/): RHEL-series OS distribution compatibility level: RHEL = Rocky ≈ Anolis > Alma > Oracle >> Euler. Recommend using RockyLinux 8.8, or Anolis 8.8 for domestic requirements. - [What Kind of Self-Reliance Do Infrastructure Software Need?](/blog/db/sovereign-dbos/): When we talk about self-reliance and control, what are we really talking about? Operational self-reliance vs. R&D self-reliance - what nations/users truly need is the former, not flashy "self-research". - [Back to Basics: Tech Reflection Chronicles](/blog/db/rethink/): The cost-cutting imperative has triggered a reevaluation of all technologies, including databases. This series critiques hot DB technologies and poses fundamental questions about their trade-offs: Are cloud databases, distributed databases, microservices, and containerization real needs or false hype? - [Database Demand Hierarchy Pyramid](/blog/db/demand-pyramid/): Similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, user demands for databases also have a progressive hierarchy: physiological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs, aesthetic needs, self-actualization needs, and transcendence needs. - [Are Microservices a Bad Idea?](/blog/db/microservice-bad-idea/): Even Amazon's SOA team admits that microservices and serverless have problems. The Prime Video team switched to a monolith, saving 90% in operational costs. - [NewSQL: Distributive Nonsense](/blog/db/distributive-bullshit/): As hardware technology advances, the capacity and performance of standalone databases have reached unprecedented heights, which makes distributed (TP) databases appear utterly powerless, much like the "data middle platform" wearing the emperor's new clothes. - [Time to Say Goodbye to GPL](/blog/db/goodbye-gpl/): DDIA author Martin Kleppmann argues we should move away from GPL licenses. In the 2020s, the enemy of computing freedom is cloud software. - [Is running postgres in docker a good idea?](/blog/db/pg-in-docker/): Thou shalt not run a prod database inside a container - [Understanding Time - Leap Years, Leap Seconds, Time and Time Zones](/blog/db/reason-about-time/): A proper understanding of time is very helpful for correctly handling time-related issues in work and life. For example, time representation and processing in computers, as well as time handling in databases and programming languages. - [Understanding Character Encoding Principles](/blog/db/character-encoding/): Without understanding the basic principles of character encoding, even simple string operations like comparison, sorting, and random access can easily lead you into pitfalls. This article attempts to clarify these issues through a comprehensive explanation. - [Concurrency Anomalies Explained](/blog/db/concurrent-control/): Concurrent programs are hard to write correctly and even harder to write well. Many programmers simply throw these problems at the database... But even the most sophisticated databases won't help if you don't understand concurrency anomalies and isolation levels. - [Blockchain and Distributed Databases](/blog/db/blockchian/): The technical essence, functionality, and evolution of blockchain is distributed databases. Specifically, it's a **Byzantine Fault Tolerant (resistant to malicious node attacks) distributed (leaderless replication) database**. - [Consistency: An Overloaded Term](/blog/db/consistency/): The term "consistency" is heavily overloaded, representing different concepts in different contexts. For example, the C in ACID and the C in CAP actually refer to different concepts. - [Why Study Database Principles](/blog/db/why-learn-database/): Those who only know how to code are just programmers; **learn databases well, and you can at least make a living**; but for **excellent** engineers, merely **using** databases is far from enough.