When thinking about open-source relational databases, many people face dilemma how to choose between two the most popular systems: MySQL and PostgreSQL. Both of them are cross-platform, time proven solutions having a lot of users ranged from individuals and small business to huge corporations. In order to resolve this issue Intelligent Converters released solutions to migrate MySQL databases to PostgreSQL server and vice versa. Both products have high performance due to direct connection to data source and destination databases (they do not use ODBC or any other middleware software). Command line support allows to script, automate and schedule the conversion process. Intelligent Converters invites both end-users and media people to try PostgreSQL to MySQL and backward conversion using free demo version of the products:

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Demo version allows to convert only five records for each database table, all other features are in place.

[HTML_REMOVED]Features[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]All versions of PostgreSQL are supported[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]All versions of Unix and Windows MySQL are supported[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Fast conversion engine (about 10,000 records per second of average P-IV system)[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Option to merge data into an existing database[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Option to convert individual tables[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Converts indexes with all necessary attributes[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Command line support[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Stores conversion settings into profile[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Support for multibyte character sets[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Easy-to-use wizard-style interface[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Full install/uninstall support[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]Unlimited 24/7 support service[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]1-year subscription for updates[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED]

More information about PostgreSQL-to-MYSQL and MySQL-to-PostgreSQL can be found here:

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REDMOND, Wash. — May 15, 2012 — Released today, the Microsoft Industry Reference Architecture for Banking (MIRA-B) is a technology reference architecture based on Microsoft Corp.’s platform and services designed to help financial institutions reduce costs and drive strategic growth.

MIRA-B, a development and delivery framework that helps financial institutions modularize and align business and technology assets, provides clarity on technical capabilities and implementation approaches to support enterprise IT architecture planning. MIRA-B outlines a road map for the future that provides the architectural flexibility to deliver industry solutions on site or in the cloud. As a result, this supports new business models, profit streams and customer experiences that enable financial institutions to leverage technology as a means of being present in the lives of their customers any time, any place, across channels and devices.

“Today’s banks are under pressure to effectively serve customers, meet new regulatory requirements and create innovative new business models and solutions while sustaining profitability,” said Joseph Pagano, managing director, Worldwide Banking and Capital Markets, Microsoft Corp. “We’re providing a reference architecture that can help financial institutions rationalize banking services, which can then be consumed by other areas of the financial institution as needed. Such repeatability and modularity removes redundancy and, as a result, MIRA-B was designed to lower costs, enable faster delivery of products to market, reduce operational risk and improve the ability to listen to customers.”

According to Temenos Group AG, the global banking software provider, IT costs in the banking industry average about 14 percent of total costs* — nearly twice that of other industries — because of redundant, outdated or siloed applications that exist across multiple business units. MIRA-B helps alleviate this issue by helping banks create repeatable architectures and reuse commodity resources, where efficiencies can be gained. This framework enables new levels of data, application and business process transparency while helping banks maintain market differentiation.

“The financial services industry is increasingly moving to a reference architecture (RA), allowing institutions to better understand the complex business and technology demands on their business,” said Rod Nelsestuen, senior research director at CEB TowerGroup. “Companies that provide an RA framework can help financial institutions streamline and accelerate the delivery of solutions to the industry.”

Building a Framework for Success

MIRA-B builds on the semantic business models being defined by the Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN), an organization of which Microsoft is a founding member. BIAN is focused on architecture models that reduce integration complexity and align IT with business objectives to create a more agile and efficient banking organization.

MIRA-B has already been endorsed by BIAN, as well as several Microsoft technology partners, including Financial Architects, Fiserv, Misys, SunGard, Temenos and Turaz. Endorsements from each partner are available here.

“Building sustainable banking architectures continues to be a key issue as financial institutions strive to align their business goals and technical capabilities,” said Alberto Alessi, head of Strategy Unit, Strategy Management Department, UniCredit Business Integrated Solutions S.C.p.A. “The success of UniCredit Business Integrated Solutions’ approach suggests that standardized components, architecture design and cloud computing must be emphasized to meet our business imperatives. Given that MIRA-B shares these attributes, we expect it will be a valuable asset in defining future capabilities for banking and other large ecosystems.”

The repeatable standards-based reference architecture provided by MIRA-B can help the banking industry drive sustained innovation and, in turn, long-term strategic growth.

For more information, please visit the MIRA-B website.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

* Source: Temenos white paper — Tackling the Productivity Paradox

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

CHICAGO — May 15, 2012 — Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, left its support of Blackberry devices in favor of Windows Phone. The move strengthens Feeding America’s capabilities as it complements the organization’s use of other Microsoft solutions including Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010.

In an effort to be fiscally responsible, Feeding America conducted a review of its former Blackberry environment and explored other wireless devices, including Android, iPhone and Windows Phone. By migrating from Blackberry to Windows Phone, the company discovered it could avoid costly annual server maintenance expenses. In addition, the organization’s move has resulted in several benefits, including a 24 percent reduction in cost per device and improved access to the information and IT services that employees rely on to collaborate and be productive.

“Windows Phone provides a level of integration with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 and Lync Server 2010 that are not available with the iPhone, iPad or Android,” said Kevin Lutz, vice president of Technology at Feeding America.

Feeding America was particularly satisfied with the ease of interoperation between Windows Phone and its existing Microsoft products. It was also impressed with the excellent end-user experience, which was seamless, coherent and familiar across all Microsoft products and services.

“With Office Mobile built into Windows Phone, employees were able to be immediately productive,” said Andy Isztok, director of Service Delivery at Feeding America. “The Office Hub in Windows Phone is great for quickly getting to PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and Excel spreadsheets — regardless of whether they’re stored on your phone or in the cloud on Windows Live SkyDrive. More and more employees are also discovering Microsoft OneNote Mobile; they love how it uses Windows Live to give them access to their OneNote notebooks on their phones, on their PCs and on the Web.”

With its mobile devices budget in better order, Feeding America is able to remain focused on its mission to feed America’s hungry through a nationwide network of more than 200 member food banks, which serve all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Through its member food banks, Feeding America is able to distribute more than 3 billion pounds of food and grocery products each year.

More information on Microsoft’s customer success stories is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/customerspotlight.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces the beta release of PostgreSQL 9.2, which will include major increases in performance and both vertical and horizontal scalability. The PostgreSQL Project asks all users to download and begin testing 9.2 Beta as soon as possible.

Major performance and scalability advances in this version include:

• Index-only scans, allowing users to avoid inefficient scans of base tables
• Enhanced read-only workload scaling to 64 cores and over 300,000 queries per second
• Improvements to data write speeds, including group commit
• Reductions in CPU power consumption
• Cascading replication, supporting geographically distributed standby databases

PostgreSQL 9.2 will also offer many new features for application developers, including:

• JSON data support, enabling hybrid document-relational databases
• Range types, supporting new types of calendar, time-series and analytic applications
• Multiple improvements to ALTER and other statements, easing runtime database updates

For a full listing of the features in version 9.2 Beta, please see the release notes.

We depend on our community to help test the next version in order to guarantee that it is high-performance and bug-free. Please download PostgreSQL 9.2 Beta and try it with your workloads and applications as soon as you can, and give feedback to the PostgreSQL developers. More information on how to test and report issues

Get PostgreSQL 9.2 beta, including binaries and installers for Windows, Linux and Mac from our download page.

Full documentation of the new version is available online, and also installs with PostgreSQL.