PostgreSQL 8.2 or higher should be used because it offers things that MySQL does not have:
** Partitioning if we need to scale the database in the future, which will likely happen if we plan on keeping more than 3 months worth of data. For example, we could partition by the week and have the db create a new child table for each new month as time goes on, then pop off outdated partitions once they become too old but keep them in another db for since-beginning-of-time queries.** Arguably better performance for larger data sets (read Google if you want to, but most of this lies in partitioning and bitmask joins)** More precise datatypes (adhering to SQL standards is a plus)** Long-standing support for stored procedures** Views for databases that are heavily normalized (helps in simple reporting!)
Designing the schema is an important task and shouldn't be taken lightly. In general, there are typically two routes to take:
