Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) provide you the ability to store large amounts of relational (tabular) records in many interlinked tables. A query language called SQL (the Structured Query Language) is used to create tables, insert/update records, and perform complex queries on the data.
In DoC, we support the following RDBMS implementations:
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PostgreSQL, a high-quality open-source RDBMS, originally created as a reimplementation of Ingres;
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Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft's flagship SQL server implementation, which is remarkably similar to the old Unix RDBMS, Sybase.
The main PostgreSQL service we offer is called db.doc.ic.ac.uk, running PostgreSQL 12, this server is intended for general teaching and educational use. Every DoC user either has, or can create themselves, a personal Postgres database on this server. Until October 2021, we used to auto-create a Postgres database (and Postgres user, or "role") for every new DoC user, where the database name (and Postgres user name) is the same as your College/DoC username.
From October 2021, we have now moved to a self-service model: if you don't know whether you already have a personal Postgres database, or Postgres user and password), please go to: https://db.doc.ic.ac.uk/ and authenticate (using your College username and password), then it will tell you whether or not you have a Postgres username and password, let you create the Postgres username if you don't, or let you reset your Postgres password if you didn't record it. Similarly it will tell you whether or not your personal Postgres database exists, and let you create it if not. It will then tell you what Postgres environment variables you should use to capture this connection information, and tell you how to store it for later use.
One you have your personal Postgres database and user/password, here are some things you can do with it:
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Follow the Postgres offsite connection guide to connect to db.doc.ic.ac.uk over ssh
Please see our:
