• Mastering PostgreSQL Administration

• Securing Data in a Multi-Platform Data Lake

• Personal Time Management

• Contributing to PostgreSQL

We are having yet another PGConf Mini in NYC. The event is scheduled for December 14th, 2017 and Work Bench is hosting:

Efficiently and Safely Propagate Data Changes Without Triggers!

 

Where is your path leading you?

 

At Postgres Conference Silicon Valley I promised during the launch that after the conference was completed PostgresWarrior and I would be taking a freedom tour to various National Parks. 

 

For us, our path is serving the community through education and professional and personal development. This happens in many forms including these newsletters.

 

Recent projects have been coordinating a successful webinar series from Yugabyte, creating  online live Postgres instructor lead training, and launching a new educational series on PostGIS. This is all happening while the Call for Papers for Postgres Conference 2020 now open! The ongoing goal is to allow any person to receive the education they need to be successful with People, Postgres, Data year around.

Training

The current training options from Postgres Conference can be found here:

https://postgresconf.org/conferences/Postgres-Digital-Training-Series/schedule/events

We have two performance trainings coming up in October:

• PostgreSQL Performance & Maintenance on October 29th
• Finding and Fixing Slow Queries on October 30th

 

Both of these training opportunities sell out at the physical conferences. They are solid content and at a reasonable price (149.00 USD ) it is hard to say no to a few hours for education in your day!

Software

Are you frustrated with the limitations and fragility of Logical Replication in PostgreSQL Core? There is a new software on the block called pgcat and it has an impressive list of features to allow your Logical Replication experience to be exceptional.

 

Looking for a simple script to help find tuning opportunities for PostgreSQL? The perl script postgresqltuner may just be what you are looking for. Yes, there really is an active developer community for the Perl language still.

 

A HyperLogLog data type for PostgreSQL from our friends at Citus. This Postgres module introduces a new data type hll which is a HyperLogLog data structure. HyperLogLog is a fixed-size, set-like structure used for distinct value counting with tunable precision. For example, in 1280 bytes hll can estimate the count of tens of billions of distinct values with only a few percent error.

 

Our partner Heimdall Data has been creating a new type of connection pool that removes a significant limitation within other software such as PgBouncer and PgPool. If you are looking for Enterprise Authentication (Active Directory/LDAP) as well as intelligent pooling for many users (and connections), it may be worth a look. There is a webinar next week on how it all works!

Does your path allow people to “Come as you are?”

In consideration of all of the great news from our community we can’t help but reflect on the blessings we have in the world of Open Source. Remember that Open Source is about exceptionalism, creativity, and most importantly freedom. When communities start restricting these three tenets of Open Source, they are no longer Open Source communities, even if their software is.

 

The theme for Postgres Conference 2020 in NYC is “come as you are” and we are asserting this mantra throughout our entire community. Over the past few years there has been an influx of toxicity throughout all circles and it is time for civility and grace to return. It is time to remember that we are all human. We all have angels and demons to our personalities. We are all flawed and we are all exceptional in our own way.

 

"But just because I don't agree with someone on everything doesn't mean that I'm not going to be friends with them. When I say, 'be kind to one another,' I don't only mean the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone."

 

-- Ellen DeGeneres

 

(Yes, this happened. No, it wasn’t planned.) 

Just outside of Moab Utah.

 

Find YOUR path.

Why did you attend PgConf US?

We have been looking for high quality, experienced, professional support for our application’s database for some time. We have found it difficult to find help online… seemingly every phone number we called was just an answering service. When we heard that the companies offering the level of service we were looking for were all available in the same place, we couldn’t resist.

Tell us a little bit (one or two paragraphs) about your project:

Our project (VX and VO collectively named Victor) is a SaaS solution for 911 emergency response systems. Victor provides analytics and quality assurance tools and services, enabling agencies to assess performance, measure resource & deployment activity, model demand, optimize workload, and even generate financial estimates. For more information see our website.

Why did you chose PostgreSQL for your project?

Victor requires both time and spacial awareness, along with all the other things that are expected from an RDBMS. PostgreSQL is stable, secure, mature, well documented, open source, actively developed, community supported, and generally bad ass. The choice was easy.

As I understand it, attending PgConf US was a last minute decision. Do you think it was worth it? If so, why?

Absolutely! Our objective was to meet with vendors who were able to provide high quality support and we were successful. Additionally, we met a ton of super geniuses (Paragon, TimescaleDB, I’m talking about you) and learned more then expected. For example, we had no idea we could put raster images in PostgreSQL and process them with PostGIS… amazing!

Would you attend PgConf US again?

Yes… see above. Unrelated, but unbelievably cool, we met a guy named Solar… a PhD (from MIT!) passionate about carbon nanotubes.

Are you interested in contributing to the community and if so, in what fashion?

Yes! …and here is our biggest piece of feedback.

It would be great if there was a clear point of entry for people like us… we have been using PostgreSQL for several years, have been through several upgrade cycles (we started on 9.0) and have no idea how our skills could be of use. We make SaaS applications, but make nothing in C. What else does the community need? How can we help?

The International Postgres conference  series continues to grow! PGConf APAC 2018 is the latest PGConf.Org addition.

1. Migration projects
2. Performance troubleshooting and tuning
3. noSQL and geo-spatial features of Postgres
4. Unique use-case and customer stories
5. Useful new features in PostgreSQL 10

To be Announced

2017-10-10: Proposals acceptance begins

2017-12-04: Proposals acceptance ends

2017-12-13: Authors of accepted proposals contacted

We’ve had a great response to our PostgresConf US 2019 call for proposals with over 170 potential presentations -- thank you to everyone who has submitted so far! As with what has become a tradition among Postgres Conferences, we are extending our deadline by one week to allow those final opportunities to trickle in!


We accept all topics that relate to People, Postgres, Data including any Postgres related topic, such as open source technologies (Linux, Python, Ruby, Golang, PostGIS).

Talks especially in high demand are sessions related to Regulated Industries including healthtech, fintech, govtech, etc., especially use case and case studies.

Interested in attending this year’s conference?

We’ve expanded our offerings, with trainings and tutorials open to everyone who purchases a Platinum registration. No separate fees for Mondays trainings (but it will be first come, first serve for seating).

Don’t forget that Early Bird registration ends this Friday, January 18. Tickets are substantially discounted when purchased early.

Due to a rise in concern around the Omnicron variant of COVID-19 and surprise remodeling/construction from the Hilton, Postgres Conference Silicon Valley 2022 has been rescheduled. The hotel has been apologetic and accommodating. The new dates for the conference are:

April 7-8 (Thursday - Friday)

Though this was an unexpected decision, we are confident that the delay of the event will result in a positive outcome for all involved.

Thank you for your support!

Get your tickets here.

With 2020 firmly in the rear view mirror, it is time to look forward and down the highway of 2021. The organizers of People, Postgres, Data have gathered over chat, email, phone, and even a few socially distant, in-person events to determine a strategy for continuing as the most influential and positive community for all things Postgres related.

Sad face

The goal is to resume in-person events. However, out of concern for the health and comfort of our global community, we have made the decision not to host any in-person events until Q4 of 2021. We are prepared to wait until 2022 if that is what the health officials recommend. We know that many will find this news disappointing and we are working diligently to ensure that the health and education of our community is the top priority.

Happy face

We are continuing our popular webinar series, adding new presenters with pertinent content for all of our attendees. We will be adding more professional development and data problem solving topics to our library, and we will no longer be limiting education to just Postgres, as many data and human problems are neutral in the particular platform we happen to enjoy. If there’s a topic you’d like to present or see, we’d love to hear from you!

RSVP for upcoming scheduled events

• January 26, 1pm ET: All we need to work with SQL is SQL
• January 27, 1pm ET: PostgreSQL Forks and Knives
• February 3, 2pm ET: Postgres for SQL Server Users
• February 4, 1pm ET: Configuring PostgreSQL for Faster Analytic Query Performance
• February 23, 1pm ET: Blockchain as a Database

Ecstasy 

Postgres Conference 2021: Digital will be happening in May of this year! An overwhelming feeling of great happiness and excitement has our dopamine pumping, and the whole People, Postgres, Data team is basking in it. 

 

As an all digital conference, we will offer a similar environment to what our community has come to expect: best in class content, professionalism, and top-tier educational opportunities for all who attend! Keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks for more information on speaking opportunities and how to attend!

Congratulations

Henrietta Dombrovskaya, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion member for PostgresConf as well as Chicago Postgresql organizer nominated for Technologist of the Year!

 

Career Opportunity

A large, well known media company is seeking a Senior Level PostgreSQL Engineer and Architect. This is an on-site engagement, however the company is known to be lifestyle friendly with reasonable working hours, good pay, and benefits. Specific talents requested are the ability to mentor. The location is Seattle, WA. If you are interested in this position please contact randy@neuringerco.com with your resume.

Great content

• Doubling the Sorting Speed of Postgres Network Types with Abbreviated Keys

• Automatically updating Materialized Views

• OrderedAppend: An optimization for range partitioning

Extension Highlight

We wanted to highlight some of the fantastic work that is being done by the ecosystem with Postgres Extensions. Although the base of Postgres is the amazing and extensible PostgreSQL, a lot of users don’t realize that Postgres has the feature they are looking for, if only they were to look to the ecosystem.

Notable Extensions:

• pgaudit : The goal of pgAudit is to provide PostgreSQL users with the capability to produce audit logs often required to comply with government, financial, or ISO certifications.

• pg_credereum : pg_credereum is a PostgreSQL extension that provides a cryptographically verifiable audit capability for a PostgreSQL database, bringing some properties of blockchain to relational DBMS.

• H3-pg : PostgreSQL bindings for H3, a hierarchical hexagonal geospatial indexing system.

Postgres can do what?

There are a ton of Postgres compatible features out there. Some of them are overlooked core features and some of them require installing a different version of Postgres. Here are a few examples:

 

• TimescaleDB: Time series data management with Postgres

• YugabyteDB: Globally Distributed database with PostgreSQL compatibility

• Postgres-XL: Horizontally partitioned PostgreSQL

• Agensgraph: Graph capabilities with Postgres

• PG-Strom: GPU accelerated extension for Postgres 

 

Upcoming Education and Networking opportunities:

• PostgresConf Silicon Valley

• PostgresConf South Africa