---
title: "Google Cloud Spanner / Is Postgres good enough? / MS goes after MongoDB"
publication: "DB Weekly"
issue: 142
published_at: "2017-02-17"
canonical_url: "https://dbweekly.com/issues/142"
---

Database Weekly 142   . 

This week's database news -[Read this on the Web](http://dbweekly.com/issues/142) 

[Database Weekly](http://dbweekly.com) Issue 142 — February 17, 2017     

Featured [Google Unveils Cloud Spanner: A Global Database Service](https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/02/introducing-Cloud-Spanner-a-global-database-service-for-mission-critical-applications.html?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — A globally-distributed relational database service with ACID transactions and SQL semantics. [WIRED’s writeup](https://www.wired.com/2017/02/spanner-google-database-harnessed-time-now-open-everyone/) gives the bigger picture of why this is a big deal. Googlenews [Is PostgreSQL Good Enough (For Almost Everything)?](http://renesd.blogspot.com/2017/02/is-postgresql-good-enough.html?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Can Postgres be ‘good enough’ for all sorts of different use cases? Time series, object stores, pubsub, realtime, and more are covered here. Rene Dudfieldopinion [Tarantool: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly](https://medium.com/@Vadim.Popov/tarantool-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-1be5c5e04dd3?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — A practical demonstration of [Tarantool](https://tarantool.org/), an open source in-memory NoSQL database and Lua app server. Vadim Popovstory [Linode is the SPEEDIEST SSD host for your DB - simple, reliable & powerful.](https://welcome.linode.com/db-weekly/?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=email&utm_term=db&utm_campaign=db-weekly-primary) — MySQL? MariaDB? PostgreSQL? Whatever DB you use, run it on a Linode, the most scalable, reliable and fastest servers in the cloud. Use promo code `DB20` for a $20 credit and get started. linodesponsored [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/c740311a.png)](https://welcome.linode.com/db-weekly/?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=email&utm_term=db&utm_campaign=db-weekly-primary) [Microsoft Azure DocumentDB Goes After MongoDB Users](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/dear-mongodb-users-we-welcome-you-in-azure-documentdb/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Microsoft is encouraging MongoDB users to switch to their [Azure DocumentDB](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/documentdb/) service, promising no rewrites would be necessary due to its MongoDB protocol support. Microsoftnews [A Look at Instapaper's Outage Cause and Recovery Process](https://medium.com/making-instapaper/instapaper-outage-cause-recovery-3c32a7e9cc5f?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Bookmarking service Instapaper experienced a 30 hour outage. Here’s the story of how their MySQL database failed, why, and how it was resolved. Brian Donohuestory ['Climbing' Big Data With Virtual Reality](https://www.datanami.com/2017/02/13/climbing-big-data-virtual-reality/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Why just look at graphs on a screen when you can go into virtual reality and ‘climb’ your data? [Video here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u76ww3NJFgE&feature=youtu.be) Datanaminews [PostgreSQL At 10TB and Beyond](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mKpfutwD0U&utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Chris Travers discusses what happens when managing over 10 terabytes of data in PostgreSQL. Does it scale and what kinds of problems need to be resolved? Chris Traversvideo In brief [Google Launches Video Analytics Challenge](https://www.datanami.com/2017/02/16/google-launches-video-analytics-challenge/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Essentially it involves classifying YouTube videos. Prizes up for grabs. Datanaminews [Citus 6.1 Released: Horizontal Scaling for PostgreSQL](https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2017/02/16/citus-61-released/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Citus Datanews [Inside IBM ML: Real-Time Analytics On the Mainframe](https://www.datanami.com/2017/02/15/inside-ibm-ml-real-time-analytics-mainframe/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Datanaminews [Online.net Introduces ODS: High Performance SQL Database Infrastructure](https://blog.online.net/2017/02/09/introducing-ods-high-performances-sql-database-infrastructure-for-any-workloads/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — A fully managed cloud SQL service. Online.​netnews [Practical Query Optimization for MySQL and PostgreSQL](https://www.vividcortex.com/resources/practical-query-optimization?utm_campaign=DB%20Weekly&utm_source=ppc) — In this book, you’ll learn how to find, evaluate, and improve the queries running on your database servers. VividCortexsponsored [Filling Missing Data and Plugging Gaps by Generating a Continuous Series in SQL](http://www.silota.com/docs/recipes/sql-generate-series-filling-gaps.html?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Silotatutorial [Pipelines vs. MapReduce to Speed Up Data Aggregation in MongoDB](https://runnable.com/blog/pipelines-vs-map-reduce-to-speed-up-data-aggregation-in-mongodb?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Henry Mollmantutorial [Managing Houses and Properties: A Real Estate Agency Data Model](http://www.vertabelo.com/blog/technical-articles/managing-houses-and-properties-a-real-estate-agency-data-model?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — The latest data model dive from Vertabelo. Emil Drkušićtutorial [The Performance Impact of SQL's 'WITH'](http://modern-sql.com/feature/with/performance?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Markus Winandtutorial [How Yahoo’s Internal Hadoop Cluster Does Double-Duty on Deep Learning](https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/02/16/yahoos-internal-hadoop-cluster-double-duty-deep-learning/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Nicole Hemsothstory [Fast and Flexible Query Analysis at MapD, with Apache Calcite](https://www.mapd.com/blog/2017/02/08/fast-and-flexible-query-analysis-at-mapd-with-apache-calcite-2/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Yet another [Apache database project](https://calcite.apache.org/) :-) Alex Suhanstory [UUID or GUID as Primary Keys? Be Careful](https://tomharrisonjr.com/uuid-or-guid-as-primary-keys-be-careful-7b2aa3dcb439?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email#.gsv8w2ctj) Tom Harrison Jropinion [Why Google's Spanner Database Won't Do As Well As Its Clone](https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/02/15/googles-spanner-database-wont-well-clone/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Timothy Prickett Morganopinion [Life After 1 Year of Using Neo4j](https://hackernoon.com/life-after-1-year-of-using-neo4j-4eca5ce95bf5?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Andrey Nikishaevopinion [RethinkDB Versus PostgreSQL: My Personal Experience](http://blog.sagemath.com/2017/02/09/rethinkdb-vs-postgres.html?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — A personal comparison only: _“It’s what I would tell you if we were talking by the water cooler.”_ William Steinopinion [Postgres Worst Practices (A Slidedeck)](http://www.slideshare.net/PostgreSQL-Consulting/postgresql-worst-practices-version-fosdem-pgday-2017-by-ilya-kosmodemiansky?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Ilya Kosmodemiansky [SQL Source Control: track each change to your SQL Server database](http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-source-control/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=displayemail&utm_content=track_every_change&utm_campaign=sqlsourcecontrol&utm_term=email-25325http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-source-control/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=displayemail&utm_content=track_every_change&utm_campaign=sqlsourcecontrol&utm_term=email-25325) — Get a full history in your source control system. See who made changes, what they did & why. [See how.](http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-source-control/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=displayemail&utm_content=track_every_change&utm_campaign=sqlsourcecontrol&utm_term=email-25325) Red Gatetools sponsored [TensorFlowOnSpark: Brings TensorFlow Programs Onto Apache Spark Clusters](https://github.com/yahoo/TensorFlowOnSpark?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) github.​comtools    

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