Panel Discussion: The OSS Toolshed Shootout

In addition to talks about different databases and related technologies delivered by individuals, one session at the OpenSQL Camp should be an interactive session with live discussions between a moderator, a selection of panelists and the audience. The participants should be representatives/proponents of the different OSS Database technologies present and should focus on highlighting the advantages and possibilities of the solution they represent instead of badmouthing any of the other participating projects. They should be fairly familiar with the product itself, but also with the toolchain and applications commonly used around it. The audience will gain practical advice and insight into how to achieve certain tasks with a given database product. Additionally, they will learn more about the various tools needed to get the job done and how the same task would be addressed with a different product.

Suggested discussion topics

• Backup and recovery: what are the usual tools and applications used to perform backups of your database of choice?
• High Availability: how can your database be made resilient to failure? What functionality is built into your database, which external tools do you use/recommend?
• Scalability: How can your database system be tuned to handle an increase in load/volume? How do you tackle performance issues?
• Security: What measurements can you take to improve the security of the database? Which features does your database provide?
• Monitoring: What functionality does the database system provide? What applications or tools do you recommend for checking the availability and health of the system?
• APIs and Connectors: How can your database interact with the wide range of programming and scripting languages? What interfaces do exist and which ones are commonly used?