Where NASA And Instagram Get Open Source Databases

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has announced the PostgreSQL 9.2 open source database with native JSON support, covering indexes, replication and performance improvements.

NOTE: JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a text-based data-interchange format programming language that is widely agreed to be "easy for humans to read and write" and is equally easy for machines to "parse and generate" in use. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript programming language and is said to use conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages.

But what does "performance improvement" really mean with this kind of technology?
Vendors of all kinds love to use the term "performance" time and time again, so what makes an open source next-generation database operate and, well, perform, so well in this case?