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.

Abbas Butt is a Software Architect at EnterpriseDB, and he will present a half-day training "Deep dive into PostgreSQL Authentication Methods" on Monday, April 16, at 1 pm. Learn more about Abbas and his involvement in the Postgres community:

Why PostgreSQL?

My company's business revolves around PostgreSQL.

Tell us about your involvement with the greater Postgres community.

I have been involved with PostgreSQL for about 10 years. Over the years I have contributed by reporting bugs and developing various FDWs. I have also worked to make PostgreSQL an XA complaint database by using a modified version of pgBouncer. My next plans are to come up with small programming exercises with solutions to accompany this book http://www.interdb.jp/pg/ ("The Internals of PostgreSQL for database administrators and system developers"  by Hironobu Suzuki). This will give the readers hands on experience.

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

Declarative table partitioning & query parallelism

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

Write Scalability and High Availability

Why should attendees come to your talk at PostgresConf US 2018? What would you like for them to take away from your session?

Attendees should come to have great time learning about PostgreSQL authentication methods. After attending the session the attendees will be better placed to decide which authentication scheme should they use and why.

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

"Aurora PostgreSQL Tutorial and Extended Deep Dive" and "Know your meme: Develop a webapp using Google Cloud Kubernetes and Cloud SQL"

What is your favorite aspect of PostgresConf US?

Being able to listen and exchange point of views with other community members.

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

Read this book : "The Internals of PostgreSQL for database administrators and system developers"  by Hironobu Suzuki.

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

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.

Tom Limoncelli is the SRE Manager at StackOverflow.com and author of Time Management for System Administrators (O'Reilly). He is co-author of The Practice of System and Network Administration (3rd edition just released) and The Practice of Cloud System Administration.  

Tom will be presenting a half-day training on Monday, April 16 on "Personal Time Management: The Basics for Overloaded People." Read what he has to say about Postgres and why to attend his session:

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

The startup I was at in 2003 needed a database. Since we did a lot of work with IP and network addresses, we picked PostgreSQL because it supports those as native types.

Tell us about your involvement with the greater Postgres community. 

I'm new to the greater Postgres community. I've been a system administrator since 1988 and often speak on related topics.

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

Anything that makes replication and failovers easier and more reliable. 

Why should attendees come to your talk at PostgresConf US 2018? What would you like for them to take away from your session?

Time management: you will gain an additional day out of every week. Radical ideas: you'll learn how modern software ("distributed computing") is radically changing how we build systems and do operations. I'd like to give them hope for the future.

What is your favorite aspect of PostgresConf US?

That it's in my back yard!  I live 10 miles from here!

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

Give yourself projects. Try to break things and then see if you can repair them.  You'll learn more from recovering a failed system than anything else.

Bonus Question: You can invite any three living people from anywhere in the world to dinner. Who do you invite and why?

Obama (because I'd like to thank him), Steve Martin (because he has an amazing life story and is super smart), and Jennifer Lawrence (she also has an interesting life story).  I also think that these three people would get along well.

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

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.

Les McMonagle is the VP of Security Strategy, at BlueTalon Inc. He will be presenting "Achieving Data Privacy Compliance in Postgres or Greenplum" on Friday, April 20, at 10:50 am. Attend his session to learn  the difference between Data Protection versus Data Access Control – and why you should care, and read what he has to say about PostgreSQL and Greenplum:

Why PostgreSQL?

BlueTalon's Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) technology has been developed to fully support PostgreSQL and Greenplum because these are broadly implemented data analytics platforms used for storing and processing of sensitive or regulated data across industries.    

Tell us about your involvement with the greater Postgres community.

PostgreSQL was one of the first platforms BlueTalon developed an Enforcement Point (EP) for to provide centrally managed, consistently applied fine-grained data access controls, audit trail and accountability for all access to sensitive or regulated data stored in PostgreSQL database platforms. 

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

BlueTalon ensures full compatibility with each new release and corresponding new features or functionality for PostgreSQL as part of our standard certification process. 

Why should attendees come to your talk at PostgresConf US 2018? What would you like for them to take away from your session?

To learn about next generation data access controls for relational databases and  other data repository platforms and how this ABAC technology integrates seamlessly with PostgresSQL and other database technologies.

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

Any data security related sessions.

What is your favorite aspect of PostgresConf US?

Firsthand contact and interaction with technology thought leaders at global corporations. 

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

Consider all aspects of designing and implementing any data analytics platform including data protection and access control.  "Privacy by Design" should be a core component of any requirements gathering and system design process.  Data security is an order of magnitude easier and less expensive to build in than it is to try and bolt on later.   

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

As part of the countdown to PostgresConf US 2018, learn more about about featured Platinum Sponsor 2ndQuadrant, including their commitment to partnering with and contributing to the Postgres community, from Simon Riggs, Chief Technology Officer, of 2ndQuadrant and PostgreSQL Major Developer/Committer:

Tell us about your commitment to the PostgreSQL Community.

The 2ndQuadrant vision is to be the bridge between the database needs of enterprise users and open source contributions to PostgreSQL. We have pursued a joint strategy of providing both working code (available now) and later submitting the features into core PostgreSQL. Over the past 15+ years, our team has widely contributed to the growth and development of the PostgreSQL project; partnering with customers to identify bottlenecks and then contribute towards enterprise features that address them in PostgreSQL, benefiting everyone that uses it. Besides contributing code, all members of the 2ndQuadrant team are very active in the community on an individual and local level, often helping to organize PUG events, conferences, and meetups.

Are there any rising stars in the community you’d like to give props to? 

Marco Nenciarini - located in Prato, Italy - has been a long time supporter and contributor of PostgreSQL. He is an active maintainer of PGDG’s APT repository, maintaining builds and binaries for PostgreSQL and associated tools & extensions, while contributing towards process improvement for sane builds. Marco is the lead developer for Barman, a backup manager and disaster recovery tool for enterprises with high business continuity requirements.  He is the current president of IT.PUG in Italy and a part of the organizing committee for PGDay.IT.

What features would you like to see in v11 and v12?

As PostgreSQL matures, so do the features that come with each release. In the next two release we’re most looking forward to improved Partitioning performance, the implementation of the MERGE SQL command, and procedures that allow server-side transactions.

Are there any features in development from 2ndQuadrant that the community should be looking forward to?

2ndQuadrant is working hard on the development of Bi-Directional Replication (BDR3), containing new architectural features and a wide and deep set of features.

In addition, we continuously work on features for scalability, performance, security and robustness.

What is the number one barrier you see to contributing to the Postgres community?

The Postgres community is one of the easiest communities to become a part of. With an open mindset all around and a common goal of growing open source PostgreSQL, the community is very accepting to anyone looking to learn, contribute, and better the Postgres ecosystem as a whole. Between the helpful tools on postgresql.org and the growing community, comprised of seasoned veterans and fresh faces, there is always helpful information to guide you.

What is the best thing about working with the Postgres community?

PostgreSQL is the most popular database when it comes to new adoption. Even existing users of other databases are flocking towards PostgreSQL - and it’s not just to save money. PostgreSQL has been growing year on year and we’re attracting interest from the largest enterprises, as it is fully capable of securely supporting enterprise database systems. 

There is still competition out there, especially with the current fad of developer-focused NoSQL databases. But the community is big enough and strong enough to quickly adapt to changing times and push forwards. The members of the PostgreSQL community are passionate about their work and the growth of the project.

Tell us why you believe people should attend PostgresConf 2018 in April.

Community conferences expand your knowledge in different areas of the technology, describe practical use cases as well as give sneak previews into cutting edge technologies for future versions of PostgreSQL. 

Simon along with Tom Kincaid, General Manager of 2ndQuadrant, presents "Internet of Things with PostgreSQL - Performance & Security" on Friday, April 20, at 8:50 am. Tom also presents "Postgres -- Past, Present and Future" and will discuss the challenges that may be faced by Postgres in the next 5 years on Thursday, April 19, at 3:20 pm. 

Visit the 2ndQuadrant team in the Exhibit Hall in the Newport Grand Ballroom on Wednesday, April 18, and Thursday, April 19.  

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

We are excited and humbled that Malika Boukhelifa will be the Keynote Speaker for Postgres Conference 2025 in Orlando. Her keynote “Code Your Way Out of Burnout” will explore how burnout happens and how we can recover without compromising our health.

About Malika Boukhelifa:

• PhD in Cell Biology (University René Descartes Paris, France)
• Integrative Health Coach and founder of Founding Momentum, LLC
• Extensive Experience in Research & Development across academia, biotech companies, and startups in the US, France, and Germany.

This session is part of our Professional Development track, designed to help attendees grow not just as technologists, but as well-rounded professionals. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and strategies for sustainable success.

Register now and book your hotel to join us for an unforgettable conference experience!

* Book by March 4th to receive our preferred discounted rate at the conference hotel

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.

Jignesh Shah is Product Manager for Amazon RDS with Amazon Web Services. At AWS he works on PostgreSQL engines at AWS including Amazon RDS PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL compatibility. He has worked with PostgreSQL since 2005 and has released application and database lifecycle products using PostgreSQL at appOrbit and VMware.

Jignesh will be co-presenting the full day "Amazon Relational Database Service for PostgreSQL and AWS Database Migration Service Training" on April 17 at 9 am, as well as the "Deep Dive into the RDS PostgreSQL Universe" session on Friday, April 20 at 9:50 am. 

Read what he has to say about Postgres and why to attend his session:

Why PostgreSQL?

Features, Open Source, License!

Tell us about your involvement with the greater Postgres community.

Involved since 2004ish. Early part focussed more on performance on high end servers. (Performance bottlenecks, working to resolve them in standard PostgreSQL) Lately more as an advocate.

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

Pub/Sub Logical Replication

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

CALL Procedure (multi-transaction), SQL Packages

Why should attendees come to your talk at PostgresConf US 2018? What would you like for them to take away from your session?

Learn about the features in Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL and how best to leverage them!

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

Keynotes!, Tutorials (Aurora, DMS), Customer sessions!

What is your favorite aspect of PostgresConf US?

Meeting the user community of PostgreSQL

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

Start with the use cases. Learn how PostgreSQL supports these use cases. Dive deeper on why PostgreSQL solves them in that particular way!

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

Are you ready to take your career to the next level? Whether you're a seasoned technology professional or just stepping in, the Professional Development track at Postgres Conference 2025 is your gateway to success.

This year, the Professional Development track offers a curated lineup of sessions designed to equip you with the skills, strategies, and insights to thrive in an evolving tech landscape. The conference takes place from March 18 - 21, 2025, and will be hosted at the beautiful DoubleTree By Hilton Hotel At The Entrance To Universal in Orlando, Florida.

What to Expect

The Professional Development track goes beyond the technical deep dives of other tracks—it’s all about empowering you to grow as a professional. Some key highlights include:

• Leadership and Team Building: Learn how to lead high-performing teams in the fast-paced world of database management.
• Career Growth Strategies: Gain actionable insights into advancing your career, from presentation tips to navigating complex workplace dynamics.
• Soft Skills for Tech Professionals: Enhance critical skills like communication, conflict resolution, and cross-team collaboration.
• Navigating Change in Tech: Hear from industry leaders about how to adapt to the shifting demands of the tech industry while staying ahead of the curve.

Whether you're a database administrator, developer, team leader, or someone looking to transition into Postgres-focused roles, this track is tailored to your professional growth.

Who Should Attend?

The Professional Development track is ideal for:

• Emerging Professionals: If you're new to the tech industry or transitioning into a Postgres-related role, you'll find valuable guidance to kickstart your journey.
• Seasoned Experts: Even the most experienced professionals can refresh their skills and stay ahead of trends.
• Leaders and Managers: Gain new tools for leading teams, managing stress, and fostering innovation in your organization.
• Tech Enthusiasts: If you're looking to grow personally and professionally within the tech industry, this track is for you.

Why You Should Register Now

Don’t miss this opportunity to invest in yourself and your future. The skills and insights you’ll gain at Postgres Conference 2025 could make the difference in your next career move or project success. Secure your spot and begin planning your schedule for the event.

Ready to take the next step? Register now for Postgres Conference 2025 and reserve your place in the Professional Development track. Early bird discounts are available, but only for a limited time—don’t wait!

Transform your career. Grow your network. Build your future. Join us at Postgres Conference 2025 and make this your year of professional development.

As part of the countdown to Postgres Conference 2024, learn more about the engaging content and our speakers for this year in our Speaker Spotlight Series.

Peter Celentano is a Senior Specialist Solutions Architect, specializing in RDS PostgreSQL and Aurora PostgreSQL. Collaborating with AWS clients, he crafts scalable, secure, performant, and resilient cloud-based database architectures.

Peter will present "PostgreSQL Architecture Considerations for Application Developers". Read what Peter has to say about Postgres and why to attend their session:

Why should attendees come to your talk at Postgres Conference 2024? What would you like for them to take away from your session?
So much content in the PostgreSQL sphere focuses on the DBA best practices and how-to's, but not much exists by comparison for the database developer. In my talk, we'll discuss key PostgreSQL concepts and database architecture (and why app developers should care). I hope folks that attend my talk take away lessons learned from the field and some best practices which they may not be aware of yet.

What is your favorite aspect of Postgres Conference?
Meeting community experts and customers whom I've met virtually (but not yet in person).

What advice would you have for a Computer Science graduate or entry-level developer who is interested in learning and engaging with Postgres and other open source technologies?
The documentation for PostgreSQL is excellent (by comparison to many other open source projects). Spin up an ec2 instance, install PostgreSQL, and start figuring out how it works! You'll always learn more by breaking something and figuring out how to fix it then by reading about it in a book! Don't forget to vacuum!!

How do you see the use of open source technologies evolving over the next five years?
I see the development of better open source LLMs and hardware to back them. And eventually, deeper integration with GenAI in the Postgres core.

What considerations should be taken for the adoption and use of Postgres and related open source technologies?
Streamlining the patch review/approval process, allowing for faster innovation in Postgres core (without compromising on security and stability)

Check out the full schedule for PostgresConf US 2024. Learn more about our conference here!

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.

Baron Schwartz is the founder and CEO of VividCortex, the best way to see what your production database servers are doing. Baron has written a lot of open source software, and several books. He’s focused his career on learning and teaching about performance and observability of systems generally (including the view that teams are systems and culture influences their performance), and databases specifically.

Baron will be presenting a breakout session "How To Index Your Database" on Friday, April 20th at 12:50 pm. Read what he has to say about Postgres and why to attend his session: 

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

The community has always been what’s drawn me to Postgres. From the very first I could immediately sense the deep commitment people had to the database and other people involved with the database. Each database community is special in its own way and has its own culture, and after being involved in many of them you sense it in a way you can’t explain. Postgres’s is loyal to freedom, independence, quality, and principles. All are dear to me as well.

Tell us about your involvement with the greater Postgres community.

I’ve participated since 2008 in various ways. I’ve blogged, written open source, written books, reviewed and tech-edited other people’s books, spoken, and attended. I hope to continue doing so!

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

Partitioning! Improved streaming replication! Parallel query execution! There are so many improvements. The pace of development is really impressive.

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

The database of the microservices-oriented future is only quasi-stateful. By this I mean that it acts almost like a read-through cache in front of “cold storage” like S3. Support for creating an empty database cluster, and having it fetch its data from cold storage on first query, would be game-changing for cloud-native apps. I realize that’s a lot of buzzwords, but it’s going to happen soon!

Why should attendees come to your talk at PostgresConf US 2018? What would you like for them to take away from your session?

Indexing is at once the most important, simplest, and most complicated topic in designing a database; I hope to make it simpler and leave people with three big things they will never struggle to remember.

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

I'm really interested in hearing how others are using Postgres, both for creative purposes that showcase its flexibility and extensibility, as well as "use as designed." In my opinion, the best conference talks aren't "you should do this"; types of talks: they are "I did this and here's what happened"; I love stories!

What is your favorite aspect of PostgresConf US?

That’s an easy one to answer: seeing all my old friends again!

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

Computer Science seems to feel that algorithms, data structures, and so on are fundamental. Data persistence, especially relational, is equally important. Don’t neglect.

You can invite any three living people from anywhere in the world to dinner. Who do you invite and why?

I invite the three hungriest people in the world and eat mindfully with them, so I learn to appreciate what I have.

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

As part of the countdown to Postgres Conference 2024, learn more about the engaging content and our speakers for this year in our Speaker Spotlight Series.

Chandra Pathivada is is a Senior Database Specialist Solutions Architect with Amazon Web Services. He works with the AWS RDS team, focusing on Open Source database engines like RDS PostgreSQL, Aurora PostgreSQL, and Babelfish for Aurora PostgreSQL.

Chandra will present “Why PostgreSQL Isn't Utilizing Indexes: Diagnosing and Solving Performance Issues" and "Behind the Scenes: Demystifying Transaction Isolation in App Development". Read what Chandra has to say about Postgres and why to attend their session:

Why should attendees come to your talk at Postgres Conference 2024? What would you like for them to take away from your session?
This talk dives into the core concepts, shedding light on the real-world implications of different isolation levels on performance and integrity. Through interactive examples and case studies, attendees will learn how to navigate common pitfalls and optimize application performance, balancing concurrency with isolation effectively. Gain the knowledge and best practices necessary to implement error-free database-backed applications, making it an invaluable opportunity for anyone looking to enhance their expertise in database management and application development.

What is your favorite aspect of Postgres Conference?
Engage with the PostgreSQL community. This conference offers a rich tapestry of learning, sharing, and networking. It's where boundaries of knowledge expand through collaboration and where every attendee, regardless of expertise, finds value and inspiration.

What advice would you have for a Computer Science graduate or entry level developer who are interested in learning and engaging with Postgres and other open source technologies?
Start with fundamentals through hands-on practice, engage with the community through forums and meetups, and contribute to projects. Expand your knowledge through tutorials and start building your own projects. Have a mentor and network with professionals specializing in areas of interest.

How do you see the use of open source technologies evolving over the next five years?
In the next five years, open-source technologies are set to play a pivotal role in innovation, with a growing preference among developers and organizations to initiate their projects or migrate from commercial to open-source solutions. The community-driven nature of these technologies will fuel the addition of new features, enhancing their value and appeal.

Check out the full schedule for PostgresConf US 2024. Learn more about our conference here and buy your tickets soon!