Debra Cerda Blog Posts

As part of the countdown to PostgresConf US 2018, learn more about the engaging content and our speakers for this year in our Speaker Spotlight Series.

Elizabeth Zalman is the Co-founder & CEO of strongDM, the definitive data security product. Previously she was Co-Founder and CEO of the cross-device profile company Media Armor.

Liz will be presenting a breakout session "Do You Know Your Vendor Dependencies" on Wednesday, April 18, at 4 pm. Read what she has to say about Postgres and why to attend her session: 

Why PostgreSQL? What got you into it, and made you stick with it?

Featureful performance & proven reliability. Over the years I've found fewer and fewer reasons to consider alternatives beyond Postgres (two notable exceptions being redis-style KV and queues).

Tell us about your involvement with the greater Postgres community.

strongDM hears a lot about how its customers use PG and its derivatives (Greenplum, the latest on Aurora, etc.) and we love sharing tips when appropriate.

What new features of PostgreSQL 10 are you most excited about?

As a security product, we're always happy to see security-related upgrades: SASL/SCRAM authentication is a popular option in several of database systems, and is a significant upgrade over the previous salted hashes. We also rely heavily on partitioning, so all related enhancements are welcome.Finally: although we generally wouldn't choose to run parallel queries in a primarily OLTP system, the promise of running analytic queries on a replica (rather than ETL'ing into an analytic database) is very appealing.

What features should be developed/improved and released in the next major upgrade?

Dynamic optimization for queries on partitioned tables. Right now if you run select * from date_partitioned_table where event_timestamp between NOW() and NOW() - interval '7 days'; It scans every partition because the result of NOW() is not knowable ahead of time. But it could optimize that query when it was asked to execute it. Instead of creating a static query plan it could say, I know I'm going to have to compute a list of partitions. So, let's just remember that. Then right before the query runs, it could calculate the list and run the query as though it had been planned with a static date range, and thus only query the affected tables. 

 Why should attendees come to your talk at PostgresConf US 2018?

In this talk, I'll share practical examples of breaches I've personally experienced along with advice on how to hold your vendors accountable, and hopefully make the topic of security a little less intimidating in the process.

What sessions are you most excited about attending at PostgresConf US 2018?

I am looking forward to attending “Reducing the Surface Area of Risk in Data Security” by Tim Gorman and “General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with Azure Database for PostgreSQL” by Mark Bolz.

What is your favorite aspect of PostgresConf US?

Being able to network with and learn from a unique community! I’ve found practice to really be one of the best ways to learn about databases.

 What advice would you have for a Computer Science graduate or entry level developer who are interested in learning and engaging with Postgres? 

 I’ve found practice to really be one of the best ways to learn about databases. Get your hands dirty: try breaking things and then fixing them! 

Check out the full schedule for PostgresConf US 2018, and buy your tickets soon!

In the spirit of fun and creativity, we’re kicking off 2026 with an invitation to bring your whole self to the Postgres community. Happy New Year from the Postgres Conference team. 

January may be wrapping up, but New Year's resolutions are still top of mind. Gym memberships. Dry January. Finally learning that language.

Here’s one resolution we can get behind: let the fun and creative parts of you take the mic.

The Life & Fun track at Postgres Conference 2026 has nothing to do with PostgreSQL, and that's exactly the point.

We spend so much of our lives thinking about databases, deployments, and deadlines. But who are you when you close the laptop? What lights you up when you're not troubleshooting queries?

Maybe you're a beekeeper. You understand colony management, seasonal cycles, and the delicate art of not getting stung.

Maybe you went solar. You researched panels, navigated permits, and now you watch your energy meter spin backward.

Maybe you're building a homestead. Chickens, gardens, rainwater collection. You're learning skills your grandparents knew and your coworkers don't.

Maybe you restore classic cars. Carburetors, body work, and the satisfaction of an engine turning over after months of weekends in the garage.

Maybe you build terrariums. Tiny ecosystems in glass. Living art that requires patience and precision.

Things like this are what make you a whole person. And whole people make better colleagues, better problem-solvers, and better community members.

Topics in the Life & Fun Track

• Hobbies and passion projects
• DIY and maker culture
• Outdoor adventures
• Creative pursuits
• Sustainability and self-sufficiency
• Anything that brings joy

Register for Postgres Conference: 2026

Postgres Conference 2026 takes place April 21-23 in San Jose, California. 

The theme, Energizing People with Data and Creativity, recognizes that the most powerful systems are built by people who are curious, fulfilled, and energized beyond their day jobs. The Life & Fun track celebrates that truth by making space for the passions, projects, and pursuits that recharge us and shape how we show up for our communities and our work.

Early bird registration is available now! Purchase your General Admission tickets here. 

Call for Postgres Conference 2026 Speakers & Trainers

We’re also welcoming proposals across all tracks, including Life & Fun. The Call for Speakers and Trainers is an invitation to bring your whole self to the conference stage. Share what excites you, what you’ve built, or what you’ve learned outside the database.

CFP closes January 30, 2026. Submit here. 

Postgres Conference is built and supported by people who care deeply about the Postgres community. We're looking for individuals who want to go beyond volunteering and help shape the conference and the community’s future.

What Organizers Do

Organizers are community stewards who help lead and sustain the conference. This role involves:

• Ongoing collaboration: You'll work with other organizers to plan, execute, and optimize the conference year-round.
• Flexible contributions: Step in where you're needed, whether that's logistics, community outreach, programming, or day-of coordination.
• Building community: Help create a welcoming space for learning and connection.

Time Commitment

Involvement varies by role and season. Most of the year requires lighter engagement. Activity increases during planning phases and peaks during the conference itself.

Who Should Apply

 We welcome both first-time contributors and experienced community leaders. If you believe in open collaboration and want to strengthen the Postgres community, this role is for you.

Get Involved

Contact us at organizers@postgresconf.org to learn more about becoming an Organizer.

Core PostgreSQL knowledge compounds over time. Understanding data types, indexing strategies, query optimization, and transaction behavior provides value regardless of framework, application architecture, or PostgreSQL version.

The Essentials track at Postgres Conference: 2026 is dedicated to core PostgreSQL knowledge. If it's in the documentation or should be, this is where we explore it thoroughly.

This isn't beginner content. Every core concept has complexity worth understanding.

What You'll Learn in the Essentials Track

Data types beyond the basics. PostgreSQL's type system includes arrays, JSONB, ranges, and custom types that solve problems other databases punt to the application layer. Learn how to leverage these types effectively.

Indexing strategies that actually work. B-tree, GIN, GiST, BRIN, and hash indexes each exist for specific reasons. Understand when to use which, how to read EXPLAIN output, and when indexes hurt more than they help.

Query optimization fundamentals. Go beyond adding indexes. Understand the query planner, statistics, joins, and execution strategies to write performant queries from the start.

Transaction isolation in practice. MVCC, isolation levels, and locking behavior aren't just academic concepts. Learn how they affect real applications and how to prevent production incidents.

Documentation deep dives. PostgreSQL's documentation is legendary, but dense. Sessions in this track surface buried knowledge and make it actionable.

Topics in the Essentials Track

• Data types deep dives (JSONB, arrays, ranges, custom types)
• Indexing strategies and trade-offs
• Query optimization and EXPLAIN analysis
• Transaction management and isolation
• Constraints and data integrity patterns
• Configuration and tuning fundamentals
• Backup, restore, and recovery basics
• Security fundamentals
• SQL features that PostgreSQL does better
• And more!

Postgres Conference 2025 Essentials Track Highlights

Check out how presenters tackled complex PostgreSQL topics and get a preview of what to expect in 2026. Listen and watch Essentials track highlights in our Postgres Conference YouTube playlist.

Register for Postgres Conference: 2026

Postgres Conference 2026 takes place April 21-23 in San Jose, California. The theme is Energizing People with Data and Creativity. Understanding the fundamentals gives you the foundation to be creative.

Early bird registration is available now! Purchase your General Admission tickets here. 

Call for Postgres Conference 2026 Speakers & Trainers

Want to share your expertise? If you like to dive deep into PostgreSQL fundamentals and can help others understand them, we want to hear from you. The CFP is open across all tracks. Share what you've learned.

CFP closes January 30, 2026. Submit here. 

The Call for Proposals to present at Postgres Conference: 2026 is open!

Postgres Conference 2026 needs your voice. We're seeking speakers who can educate, inspire, and engage with the PostgreSQL community. Our six tracks span technical deep dives, operational best practices, career development, and yes, even your non-database passions. Share what you know, what you've learned, or what matters to you.

Join us April 21-23, 2026, in San Jose, California, for three days of learning, networking, and celebrating everything that makes the PostgreSQL community exceptional.

Six Tracks, Unlimited Possibilities at Postgres Conference: 2026

• Postgres Extensions Day: Dedicated to developers building and maintaining PostgreSQL extensions. Share your work, learn from others, and connect with the extensions community.
• Dev Track: Application development with PostgreSQL. Topics include using extensions like pg_vector for enhanced search performance, creating custom data types, building applications, and leveraging PostgreSQL features in your development workflow.
• Ops Track: Operational practices for PostgreSQL and related technologies. Covers deployment, monitoring, performance tuning, backup strategies, high availability, replication, and infrastructure management.
• Essentials Track: Deep dives into core PostgreSQL functionality. Explore data types, built-in features, query optimization, indexing strategies, and fundamental concepts. If it's in the documentation or should be, this track explores it thoroughly. Core PostgreSQL knowledge that provides long-term career value.
• Life and Fun Track: Non-technical topics that make us human. Share your hobbies, side projects, and interests outside of databases. Topics include beekeeping, gardening, homesteading, solar projects, IoT experiments, mountain biking, camping, and anything else that brings you joy.
• Professional Development & Wellness Track: Career growth and personal well-being. Topics include career advancement, managing burnout, work-life integration, mental health, communication skills, leadership development, and building sustainable careers in technology.

Choose Your Format

We offer four session formats to match your content and presentation style:

• Talk (50 minutes): The standard conference format with time for depth and detail. Ideal for comprehensive technical topics, case studies, architectural overviews, or storytelling that needs room to breathe. Includes time for audience questions and discussion. Plan for 40-45 minutes of content to allow for Q&A.
• Presentation (20 minutes): Focused, fast-paced format for specific topics or techniques. Perfect for introducing a new tool, sharing a specific solution to a common problem, or delivering a concentrated dose of knowledge. Get in, deliver value, get out. No time for Q&A during the session, but speakers should make themselves available afterward for an impromptu hallway session
• Mini-tutorial (90 minutes): Hands-on learning sessions where attendees follow along on their own laptops. Best for teaching practical skills, walking through implementations, or guided problem-solving. Assumes attendees will have their development environment ready. Include setup instructions in your proposal and plan for troubleshooting time.
• T3D Session (10 minutes): Tips, Tricks, and Deep Dives. Lightning-fast knowledge bombs. Share one powerful technique, one crucial insight, or one problem-solution pair. No fluff, no long introductions. These sessions are scheduled back-to-back, so timing is strict. Perfect for that one thing you wish everyone knew about PostgreSQL and related open source technologies.

Why Speak at Postgres Conference?

Speaking at Postgres Conference connects you with hundreds of PostgreSQL professionals, from developers and DBAs to architects and business leaders. You'll share your expertise, build your professional network, and contribute to the community that makes PostgreSQL thrive.

First-time speakers and conference veterans alike are welcome. We're committed to diverse voices and perspectives across all our tracks.

Submit Your Proposal

• Ready to share your knowledge? View our presentation guidelines and submit your proposal here by January 30, 2026.
• Have questions about your submission? Reach out to our program committee. We're here to help you craft a proposal that showcases your expertise.
• View the full conference details

Sponsorship Opportunities

Interested in supporting the PostgreSQL community and connecting with decision-makers in Silicon Valley? Download our sponsorship prospectus or contact us to discuss partnership opportunities

We'll see you in sunny San Jose in April 2026. Let's build something great together.

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On May 12, 2025, something remarkable happened in Montréal. The Postgres Extension Developers Coalition (“PGDEC”) hosted Postgres Extensions Day Montréal 2025 as a free, full-day event to provide a forum for extension developers to discuss challenges and solutions. The PGEDC seeks to identify and address limitations within the current Postgres extension framework, advocating for improvements and new features that would benefit the extension ecosystem.

The Postgres community responded with overwhelming enthusiasm through insightful presentations and engaging hallway discussions. You can watch the entire Postgres Extensions Day 2025 Montreal event on the PGDEC YouTube channel below:

This enthusiasm wasn't new. At previous Postgres Conferences, extension sessions have been consistently well-attended. Nearly all the pgvector sessions at the 2026 conference in Orlando were at capacity.

Standing Room Only: The Extension Community Speaks

Sessions like "Postgres.pm: Packaging Manager Magic" by Yurii Rashkovskii, "1 Billion Row Challenge: Comparing Postgres, DuckDB, and Extensions" by Ryan Booz, and "Understanding Database Statistics and Extensions in PostgreSQL" by Ranjan Burman drew significant interest. The message was clear: the community craves extension content.

Why Extensions Matter

Extensions are PostgreSQL's superpower, as they transform a database into an even more robust platform. Need vector similarity search for AI applications? Install pg_vector. Building location services? PostGIS has you covered. Time-series data? TimescaleDB. Horizontal scaling? Citus. The ecosystem includes over 300 extensions, each solving real problems every day.

The Challenges Extension Developers Face

• But extension developers face unique challenges:
• Maintaining compatibility across PostgreSQL versions is complex
• Distribution and packaging strategies vary wildly
• Security considerations multiply when you're extending core functionality
• Testing becomes exponentially harder
• The community is fragmented, as maintainers of different extensions rarely connect in person

Postgres Extensions Day Montréal 2025 proved that extension developers need a dedicated space. Not a 20-minute talk squeezed between database administration sessions or surface-level overviews.

The standing-room-only sessions at Postgres Conference 2025 validated this need, so we're extending Extensions Day quite literally to Silicon Valley. On April 23, 2026, Postgres Conference brings the proven Montreal format to the West Coast with enhanced reach and integration.

Where Innovation Actually Happens

Why does this matter? Because extensions are where PostgreSQL innovation happens. Core database development moves carefully and deliberately. Extensions move fast — they innovate, address edge cases, and push boundaries.

Extensions Day embodies Postgres Conference 2026's theme: "Energizing People with Data and Creativity." Extension developers are the creative force transforming data possibilities.

Extension developers deserve recognition, technical depth, and community support. Extensions Day at Postgres Conference 2026 provides all of this and more.

Your Moment to Connect

The extension community has spoken. From standing-room-only sessions at conferences to the overwhelming response in Montréal, the message is clear: extension developers need their own space. They've been working in isolation, solving similar problems independently, waiting for their moment to connect.

That moment is now.

Watch what happened in May, and see the community that's forming. Then answer the call by bringing your extension expertise to San Jose. Your challenges, your solutions, and your insights matter. The ecosystem needs your ideas, your voice, and your creativity!

What We're Looking For

Topics we’re looking for:

• Operating extensions in production
• Teaching extension development
• Extension packaging and delivery
• Libraries and frameworks for extensions
• Gaps and challenges
• Implementing extensions in different languages
• Interesting techniques, discoveries, and lessons learned
• Extensions security
• Anything related to Postgres extensions

Share your extension expertise at Extensions Day at Postgres Conference 2026. Submit your proposal here before the CFP closes on January 30, 2026.

Interested in attending? Early Bird Registration is now open! Learn more at the blog post and register today!

Postgres Conference 2025 in Orlando, held March 18–21, brought together PostgreSQL professionals from around the world for a week of deep technical learning, professional development, and intentional networking. With expanded tracks and thoughtfully curated sessions, this year’s gathering balanced core database expertise with a growing focus on holistic professional growth.

Event Highlights

• Expanded Tracks: In addition to the core DevOps, and Essentials tracks, the conference introduced Professional Development and Variants & Cloud tracks. These additions reflected the complexity of today’s tech environments and the evolving needs of those who manage them.

• Keynote Address: Malika Boukhelifa’s keynote, “Code Your Way Out of Burnout,” addressed the role of mental health in sustainable tech careers and provided attendees with strategies for long-term success.

• Technical Deep Dives: Popular sessions on pg_vector, analytics with DuckDB, and PostgreSQL partitioning strategies demonstrated the community’s interest in advanced features and real-world applications.

• Professional Development: The new track featured sessions on leadership, communication, and soft skills. Certified Wellness Coaches were also available onsite, offering support and tools to help attendees prioritize mental wellness alongside technical growth.

• Community and Networking: Conversations flowed freely in workshops, hallway meetups, and evening events like the tropical-themed buffet. The size and format of the event allowed for stronger peer connections and genuine knowledge exchange.

This year’s more focused format was intentional. The smaller scale fostered deeper discussion, better engagement, and more actionable takeaways. Whether tackling database replication or burnout prevention, attendees walked away with tools they could apply immediately. We would not be able to accomplish this without the generous support of our sponsors and partners.

Looking ahead, we plan to cap attendance in future years to preserve the quality and depth of the experience. Postgres Conference is no longer designed to be the largest event. Its goal is to be the most effective.

Want to stay updated on future Postgres Conferences and community news?
Subscribe to the PostgresWorld Substack for first access to upcoming events, announcements, and insights from the PostgreSQL ecosystem.

In the spirit of fun and creativity, we offer this whimsical view of operations excellence. No matter what holidays you observe—or if you observe none at all—we hope this season brings you time for bonding, joy, and repose. Happy holidays from the Postgres Conference team. 

Let's talk about the greatest operations professional of all time: Santa Claus.

Think about it. Every December 24th, Santa executes a global deployment with a one-night SLA. Zero downtime tolerance. No rollback option. The whole world is watching, and failure is not an option. His operations credentials are impeccable:

Global Distribution Network. Billions of deliveries across every time zone in a single maintenance window. Try explaining that SLA to your stakeholders.

Real-Time Monitoring. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. Santa's observability game is unmatched. He knows if you've been bad or good—that's behavioral analytics at scale.

Massive Database Management. The naughty/nice list is a production database with billions of records, updated continuously throughout the year. Annual refresh cycle. No data loss. Ever.

Failover Systems. Remember when the weather nearly took down Christmas? Rudolph wasn't just a reindeer with a shiny nose. Rudolph was a failover solution implemented under pressure. That's incident response.

Capacity Planning. Cookies and milk at every stop. Presents for every child. Sleigh weight distribution. Santa doesn't wing it. Santa has a plan.

Workforce Management. Elves are working year-round across multiple workshops. Reindeer training programs. Quality assurance on every toy. That's operational excellence.

The Ops Track at Postgres Conference: 2026

If Santa ran PostgreSQL, he'd be attending—or presenting at—the Ops track.

The Ops track at Postgres Conference: 2026 is for everyone managing PostgreSQL in production. You'll learn from practitioners sharing hard-won operational wisdom. Topics include:

• Deployment strategies and automation
• Monitoring and observability
• Performance tuning
• Backup and recovery
• High availability and replication
• Capacity planning
• Security hardening
• Automation and orchestration
• Managing PostgreSQL at scale

Postgres Conference 2025 Ops Track Highlights

Listen or watch sessions from the Postgres Conference 2025: Ops Track on YouTube.

Register for Postgres Conference: 2026

Postgres Conference: 2026 takes place April 21-23 in San Jose, California. The theme is Energizing People with Data and Creativity. Nothing says creativity like keeping production databases running smoothly under pressure. 

Early bird registration is available now! Purchase your General Admission tickets here. 

Call for Postgres Conference 2026 Speakers & Trainers

Want to share your expertise? If you like managing PostgreSQL in production and can help others learn from your operational experience, we want to hear from you. The CFP is open across all tracks. Share what you've learned.

CFP closes January 30, 2026. Submit here.