The administration of the Dutch municipality of Waalwijk has switched to using the open source Postgresql relational database management system, replacing a ubiquitous proprietary RDBMS. "Continuing with the proprietary database would have meant a forced and costly upgrade to the vendor's latest version", says Eric de Laat, responsible for HRM and IT at the municipality.
The migration of the databases was completed during a recent weekend, says De Laat: "And as far as we can tell, it was a smooth switch. All systems continue to operate fine."
The civil servants themselves are not involved in managing the databases, all of this is handled by the ICT service supplier, PinkRoccade, which hosts the system in a data centre. That is one of the reasons that the city decided on the migration. "They assured us the database will perform as good and would be less expensive to maintain."
Come one, come all
The IT service provider began offering the use of Postgresql as an alternative to the proprietary RDBMS only this summer. The firm requires a RDBMS for those that use their Makelaarsuite solution, a data distribution system they develop especially for municipalities. Waalwijk is one of about 180 Dutch municipalities that use this information management system, and it is the first to have switched the underlying database system. "They've told us that there are several others that are about to do the same."
Waalwijk's switch to Postgresql does not mean the city administration will start replacing more of its proprietary applications, expects De Laat. However, the town is considering a similar change for its document management system. The provider of that proprietary system is "also talking about offering support for an open source database system".