About this Documentation

Source code for the Greenplum Database documentation is shared between Greenplum Database and Pivotal Greenplum Database. Some features of Pivotal Greenplum Database are not present in the open source Greenplum Database code but are described in the Greenplum Database documentation.

In general, the term “Pivotal Greenplum Database” refers to Pivotal’s commercial, supported version of Greenplum Database and is used in this documentation when describing features that are only supported in the commercial Greenplum Database software. The term “Greenplum Database” refers to features available in both open source Greenplum Database and Pivotal Greenplum Database.

Features that are only supported with Pivotal Greenplum Database are noted in sections that contain primary documentation for the features.

The following is a list of Pivotal Greenplum Database features that are unsupported in open source Greenplum Database but may be documented or referenced in this documentation.

  • Code to produce the Pivotal Greenplum Database binary installer packages is not included in the open source Greenplum Database repository.

  • Greenplum Database does not include EMC DD Boost integration. Backing up to an EMC Data Domain appliance is only supported when the Data Domain system is mounted as an NFS share on the Greenplum hosts.

  • Greenplum Database does not include Symantec NetBackup integration.

  • The QuickLZ compression method is not available in Greenplum Database. QuickLZ compresstype values are ignored when specified in a CREATE TABLE [AS] operation, but will cause an error on subsequent INSERT or SELECT operations on the table.

  • The deprecated gpcheck management utility and its replacement gpsupport are only supported with Pivotal Greenplum Database.

  • Suggestions to contact Pivotal Technical Support in this documentation are intended only for Pivotal Greenplum Database customers.

Source code for the following open source Greenplum components are located in repositories outside of the Greenplum Database repo:

  • To use Backup and Restore with open source Greenplum Database, you must separately build and install the backup/restore software. Refer to the build instructions in the README file located in the Greenplum Backup and Restore github repository.

  • To use the Greenplum Platform Extension Framework (PXF) with open source Greenplum Database, you must separately build and install the PXF software. Refer to the build and packaging instructions in the PXF Packaging README file located in the PXF github repository.