Joshua D. Drake Blog Posts

People and Postgres: April 17th, 2019

Welcome to the first of what we hope will be a thriving and productive way to interact with the People, Postgres, Data community!

The goal of this newsletter is to let our community know the ins-and-outs of what is happening in the world of Postgres and the Postgres ecosystem. Let's start from the top: 

  • Ecosystem news

    • JD, Co-Chair of PostgresConf, was recently part of the Inside Analysis podcast: The Evolving Enterprise. This podcast is not only available on the Internet but was live on 20 radio markets. 
    • Crunchy Data Collaborates With Center for Internet Security® To Continue Advancing PostgreSQL Security For Enterprise
    • The Distributed SQL Summit is being held at PostgresConf Silicon Valley on September 20th, 2019.
      • This unique "event within an event" strategy was spearheaded by PostgresConf with the Regulated Industry summit years ago and it continues to grow with events such as the AWS Migration Day and the Pivotal Greenplum Summit. The Distributed SQL Summit is a vendor neutral single day event specializing in providing high quality Developer, Architect and other Practitioner content on deploying and developing production quality products and services over Distributed SQL. It is sponsored by:
Joshua D. Drake     April 17, 2019


People, Postgres, Data is not just an advocacy term. It is the mission of PostgresConf.Org. It is our rule of thumb, our mantra, and our purpose. When we determine which presentations to approve, which workshops to support, which individuals to receive scholarships, which events to organize, and any task big or small, it must follow: People, Postgres, Data. It is our belief that this mantra allows us to maintain our growth and continue to advocate for the Postgres community and ecosystem in a positive and productive way.

When you attend PostgresConf the first thing you will notice is the diversity of the supported ecosystem; whether you want to discuss the finer points of contribution with the major PostgreSQL.Org sponsors such as 2ndQuadrant or EnterpriseDB, or you want to embrace the Postgres ecosystem with the Greenplum Summit or TimeScaleDB.

The following is a small sampling of content that will be presented April 16 - 20 at the Westin Jersey City Newport:

Learn to Administer Postgres with this comprehensive training opportunity:

Understand the risks of securing your data during this Regulated Industry Summit presentation:

Struggle with time management? We have professional development training such as:

Educate yourself on how to contribute back to the PostgreSQL community:

We are a community driven and volunteer organized ecosystem conference. We want to help the community become stronger, increase education about Postgres, and offer career opportunities and knowledge about the entire ecosystem. Please join us in April!

Joshua D. Drake     February 27, 2018

 
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No year has been better for PostgreSQL or the Postgres Ecosystem than 2017. The continued adoption and growth of open source communities over the last 40 years shows a mature and strong ecosystem. It is true what they say, "Middle age is the best time of your life." Here are just a few of the great results of 2017:
  • Amazing work from PostgreSQL.Org with the release of v10 which brought much sought after technologies such as native table partitioning, integrated logical replication, and mature support for federated tables.
  • Pivotal announced multi-cloud support for their Open Source, BigData, MPP Postgres variant Greenplum.
  • Increased support and features from Cloud Industry heavy weights AWSCompose.IO, and Microsoft. Microsoft released Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Compose increased their high availability options, and AWS announced the availability of Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL compatibility.
  • Enterprise Consulting and Support continued to grow with support from PostgreSQL.Org Major Sponsors 2ndQuadrant and OpenSCG.
2017 was also the year we saw the launch of the International Postgres Conference, PostgresConf. The PostgresConf project is a globally aware, ecosystem centric conference focused on People, Postgres, Data. The project organized more events this year than any other Postgres Advocacy and Education project. In the United States there was PGConf US (now PostgresConf US), Austin Mini, Philadelphia, (2) NYC Minis, Seattle, and finally a full Austin event. The project also hosted PostgresConf South Africa and has several International events planned in 2018.
 
The PostgresConf International efforts wouldn't be possible without the fundamental support of the community and our ecosystem partners:
 
 
 

We have nothing but confidence in the continued growth of PostgreSQL and the Postgres related ecosystem through 2018. Thank you to the PostgreSQL.Org community, our ecosystem partners, and the global Postgres Ecosystem community; without you our efforts would not continue to succeed as a volunteer organized, non-profit Postgres conference. We are looking forward to a fantastic 2018, centered on People, Postgres, Data.


 
 
Joshua D. Drake     January 08, 2018

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?
Joshua D. Drake     April 19, 2017

After National 2017, the PGConf US team decided to take a long hard road to bring the best in educational content and advocacy to the entire Postgres ecosystem. Today, we welcome 2ndQuadrant as a Platinum sponsor and thank them for helping us with our year over year projects.


2ndq logo color no cross

It is sponsors like 2ndQuadrant that are allowing us to achieve our goal of having not only our National event but Philly, Seattle, and Austin all within 2017. We also have other education and advocacy initiatives that continue to develop include webinars, community profiles, and e-training. Stay tuned for more information on those!

Other PGConf US news:


Joshua D. Drake     June 29, 2017

Join the fantastic and growing Postgres community in Cape Town, South Africa for a single day event on October 3rd, 2017! The event is being hosted by fellow Postgres advocates who travel from South Africa each year to attend our National Event in order to increase their knowledge of Postgres and be a part of the community. This year they are joining us and making a commitment to build out our International community and conferences!

This single day event takes place at the same venue as PyCon South Africa and is scheduled the day before PyCon to ensure the greatest possible value in attending.

Image result for PGConf US

Local events are designed to bring comprehensive educational content and networking opportunities to the "local" Postgres community where the event is being held. They are perfect opportunities to show support for Postgres, find leads, and build relationships with other professionals and companies using and supporting Postgres.

Joshua D. Drake     August 15, 2017

 Postgres Conference 2019


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.

Register for PostgresConf 2019

Interested in an AWESOME international Postgres Conference opportunity? Consider attending PgConf Russia

PGConf Russia




Joshua D. Drake     January 15, 2019

PostgresConf hopes everyone had a great holiday season and we hope everyone has a fantastic 2019.

With January upon us, we start conference season. This year, PostgresConf 2019 will be in NYC at the Sheraton New York Times Square March 18-22, 2019.

If you have a story about lessons learned with Postgres, a cool feature that you've found a creative way of using, or just some practical knowledge you'd like to share with your fellow Postgres users, submit a talk. Remember, there are many people who are new to Postgres, so introduction levels talks are welcome. The CFP ends this Friday so get your talks submitted soon at:
https://postgresconf.org/conferences/2019#callforpapers

Also, the Early Bird window for PostgresConf 2019 will be ending next Friday, January 18. This tickets are pretty substantially discounted if you purchase them early. On top of the Early Bird discount, for being a member of the NYC Postgres User Group, there is a promo code for an additional 15% off. Just use the code 2019_PUG_NYC when buying your tickets.
Lastly, if you are already in the NYC area we look forward to seeing the community at the Winter Party on the 10th!
We hope to see you at PostgresConf 2019 and remember:



Joshua D. Drake     January 09, 2019

We are pleased to announce that PostgresConf 2019 will be held at the Sheraton Times Square March 18th - 22nd, 2019. 
 
 
Following on the success of PostgresConf 2018, 2019 will include five days with added training and partner summits.
 


March 18th and 19th will have immersive training. Instructors are encouraged to submit half and full day material for consideration. The preferred topics are centered around Postgres but anything People, Postgres, or Data related will be considered.

Monday, March 18th through Friday, March 22nd will host several partner summits, including popular and upcoming topics within the Postgres community and the annually hosted Regulated Industry Summit. Break out sessions will be held from Wednesday - Friday.

In addition to the partner summits, PostgresConf 2019 will offer multiple program tracks with Postgres related topics including (but not limited to): 

  • Postgres Internals
  • Postgres Administration
  • Operations and Development
  • Data
  • Cloud
  • Database Security and Compliance
  • Use Cases
  • Regulated Industries
    • Telecommunications
    • Healthcare and life sciences
    • Railroad, airline and pipeline transportation
    • Oil and gas
    • Electric power and transmission
    • Financial services and trading 
Important Dates:
  • Call for Papers Open: 09/12/2018 
  • Call for Papers Close: 01/11/2019 
  • Confirmation/Acceptance: 01/18/2019
Can't wait until March? Join us at our West Coast event, PostgresConf Silicon Valley, October 15th and 16th, 2018 at the Hilton San Jose.
 
About PostgresConf:


PostgresConf is a global nonprofit conference series with a focus on growing community through increased awareness and education of Postgres and related technologies. PostgresConf is known for its highly attended national conference with the mission of:

 
 
Joshua D. Drake     September 25, 2018



Join the PostgreSQL community in Philadelphia on July 13th and 14th 2017 for two days of fantastic PostgreSQL content. July 13th will contain trainings and July 14th will be breakout sessions. The call for papers and sponsors is also open! When submitting papers to PGConf US events, please review the presentation guidelines.

Image result for PGConf US


PGConf US Local events are designed to bring comprehensive educational content and networking opportunities to the "local" PostgreSQL community where the event is being held. They are perfect opportunities to show support for PostgreSQL, find leads and build relationships with other professionals and companies using and support PostgreSQL.











d at Huntsman Hall at The Wharton School

Joshua D. Drake     May 08, 2017