Download of the day: PostgreSQL 8.3 Database Server

PostgreSQL 8.3 has been released and available for download. PostgreSQL considered as the world's most advanced open source database. From the announcement page:

This release includes a record number of new and improved features which will greatly enhance PostgreSQL for application designers, database administrators, and users, with more than 280 patches by dozens of PostgreSQL contributors from 18 countries. Version 8.3 provides greater consistency of performance than previous versions, ensuring that every user can depend on the same high performance demonstrated in recent benchmarks for every transaction, whether in peak hours or not, seven days a week, 52 weeks per year. Major performance enhancements include:
-> Heap Only Tuples (HOT), which eliminate up to 3/4 of the maintenance overhead of frequently updated tables
-> Spread checkpoints and background writer autotuning, which reduce the impact of checkpoints on response times
-> Asynchronous commit option for much faster response times on some transactions
These changes also significantly accelerate transaction processing throughput, between 5% and 30%, depending on the workload.