The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released PostgreSQL 8.1, "designed, built, and tested by a large and thriving community and backed by a growing number of corporate sponsors and support companies," according to official release information.

Version 8.1 expands the scope of PostgreSQL application development, and includes performance improvements and advanced SQL features that support bigger data warehouses, higher-volume transaction processing, and more complex distributed enterprise software.

"The project is clearly accelerating in the minds of database users," said Lance Obermeyer, Director of Products at Pervasive Software, one of PostgreSQL's corporate sponsors. "Given the growing interest in open source infrastructure software, we're expecting PostgreSQL to pick up even more steam."

PostgreSQL 8.1 contains more than 120 new features and enhancements contributed by almost 200 developers. Among them are:

Roles: PostgreSQL now supports database roles, which simplify the management of large numbers of users with complex overlapping database rights.

IN/OUT Parameters: PostgreSQL functions now support IN, OUT and INOUT parameters, which substantially improves support of complex business logic for J2EE and .NET applications.

Two-Phase Commit (2PC): Long in demand for WAN applications and heterogeneous data centers using PostgreSQL, this feature allows ACID-compliant transactions across widely separated servers.