Vonage has already ported part of its ticketing system for managing customer support from MySQL to EnterpriseDB Advanced Server, according to Tim Smith, president of Vonage Network. The software is running on T1000 and T2000 servers from Sun Microsystems Inc. using the experimental OpenSolaris operating system -- so far without any problems.

Vonage is also looking "fairly seriously" at moving its multi-terabyte billing records database from Oracle 9 to EnterpriseDB, Smith said.

Smith said he likes EnterpriseDB because it offers much of the power of Oracle, including compatibility with Oracle applications, but at the price of the open-source MySQL. "Oracle is a sledgehammer. MySQL is a small hammer. We needed something in between," he said.

Gaining a foothold into Vonage is the latest win for EnterpriseDB, which has been a roll since launching a little more than a year ago. The company now claims about 45 companies using its database, which is a customized version of the PostGreSQL open-source database optimized for high-transaction environments, according to CEO Andy Astor. The list of customers includes Sony Online, which replaced Oracle databases with EnterpriseDB for core online gaming systems, and Agri Stats Inc., which swapped out IBM DB2 databases.

PostGres Inc. also counts about 15 partners, including Sun, which in early August selected EnterpriseDB to provide support for copies of PostGreSQL bundled into servers running Sun's Solaris 10 operating system.