Joshua D. Drake Blog Posts

PGConf Local: Philly 2017 registration open and schedule published

The third PGConf US event of the year is happening July 13 - 14th! Tickets are now available!

This year the event is at Huntsman Hall located at The Wharton School. There will be two days of awesome Postgres content. On July 13th we are pleased to offer two great training sessions by two of the most veteran members of the PostgreSQL community, Bruce Momjian and Joshua Drake. Between them they have well over 40 years of hands-on experience with PostgreSQL. 

On July 14th we have eight first-rate sessions covering everything from Postgres performance to development. Check out the full schedule here:
Sponsorship opportunities for the conference are still available. If you use Postgres, support Postgres, or if you are looking to recruit a local Postgres expert, this is a great opportunity. Become a part of our dynamic and growing ecosystem! The prospectus is available at:

We would not be able to produce PGConf Local: Philly 2017 without the generous support from our sponsors:

For more information about PGConf US please visit: PGConf US


PGConf US: People, Postgres, Data



Joshua D. Drake     June 20, 2017

PGConf Local: Seattle 2017 registration open and schedule published

The first ever PGConf US Local: Seattle event is happening in partnership with SEAPUG on August 11th and 12th at the Sheraton Downtown Seattle! On August 11th we have four training options available:
  1. Mastering PostgreSQL Administration by Bruce Momjian
  2. Migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL by Jim Mlodgenski
  3. Postgres Performance and Maintenance by Joshua (JD) Drake
  4. Database Automation by Robert Bernier 

Tickets are now available!


On August 12th we have 14 break-out sessions between the Development and Operations tracks. A sample of our break-out sessions is available below but please check the full schedule for all of the fantastic content!
We would not be able to produce PGConf Local: Seattle 2017 without the generous support from our sponsors:
    Sponsorship opportunities for the conference are still available. If you use Postgres, support Postgres, or if you are looking to recruit a local Postgres expert, this is a great opportunity. Become a part of our dynamic and growing ecosystem! The prospectus is available at:
    Joshua D. Drake     July 11, 2017

    Rescheduled: PGConf US Local: Seattle and PGConf US Local: Austin

    Community,


    The Chairs of PGConf US have rescheduled the Seattle and Austin Local events. After much deliberation we believe moving the events to a weekday format later in the year will offer a better opportunity for those who wish to attend.

    New dates:
    • Seattle: November 13th and 14th, 2017
    • Austin: December 4th and 5th, 2017
    The CFP for Seattle is closed but Austin is still open!

    People, Postgres, Data

    Joshua D. Drake     August 08, 2017

    PostgresConf US 2018 Talent Exchange and Career Fair

    In support of our theme of "People, Postgres, Data", the PostgresConf US 2018 hosts its 2nd annual Talent Exchange & Career Fair on Friday, April 20, from 10:30 am - 1:30 pm. This event is free for job seekers and open to the public.
    Companies represented include:
    • Amazon
    • Pivotal
    • 2ndQuadrant
    • Microsoft
    • Timescale
    • HighGo
    • Data Dog
    • Fivetran
    • BlueTalon
    • Goldman Sachs
    • forhims
    • Immuta
    Last year, the Career Fair brought together employers and candidates in one of the hottest career options available today, Postgres DBA.
    New for this year -- Career Mentors and Resume Reviewers
    Check out the full schedule for PostgresConf US 2018, and buy your tickets soon!
    Joshua D. Drake     April 11, 2018

    3 presentations, 1 PGConf: NYC Mini!

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

     
     
    The event is part of the PGConf Mini series and is free to attend. The PGConf Mini series works directly with user groups and external communities to organize events for the local community. The events are held as a larger meetup style event with networking opportunities and up to 4 presentations. The current agenda for the latest PGConf Mini: NYC is:
     
    Agenda: 
     
    • 6:30 - 7:00: Jonathan Katz, (TBD), Postgresql Contributor and PGConf Chair Emeritus

    Efficiently and Safely Propagate Data Changes Without Triggers!

     

    Prior to PostgreSQL 9.4, the primary way to distribute data-driven changes across multiple tables was to use triggers. While triggers guarantee that these changes will be propagated, they can have a significant impact application performance, both technically and with development time (see: "debugging"). PostgreSQL 9.4 introduced logical decoding, which provides a way to stream all changes in a database to a consumer. Using a logical decoder, you can read all changes that are made in a table into your programming language of choice to perform many tasks: cache invalidation, data propagation, submitting changes to remote services, and more. Many PostgreSQL drivers, such as psycopg2 and JDBC support the logical replication protocol, which lets you easily stream your database changes to be manipulated using your favorite programming language. This talk will demonstrate how you can setup logical decoding for your application, look at architecture strategies for working with a logical decoder, and look at a case-study that shows how using logical decoding led to a big performance boost over a similar trigger-based system.
     
    • 7:00 - 7:30:  Kevin Jernigan, Senior Product Manager, Amazon
    Technical Architecture of Postgres Aurora 
     
    Amazon Aurora is a cloud-optimized relational database that combines the speed and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases. The recently announced PostgreSQL-compatibility, together with the original MySQL compatibility, are perfect for new application development and for migrations from overpriced, restrictive commercial databases. In this session, we’ll do a deep dive into the new architectural model and distributed systems techniques behind Amazon Aurora, discuss best practices and configurations, look at migration options and share customer experience from the field. 
     
    • 7:30 - 8:20: Joshua (JD) Drake POSTPONED due to flight cancellation)
    The Power of Postgres Replication, Postgres Expert - Lead Consultant Command Prompt, Inc and Co-Chair PGConf!
     
    With PostgreSQL v10 a new replication engine has come to town. Let's explore Postgres Logical Replication, how to use it, optimize it and let it best fit in with your organization. We will also discuss its interactions with external tools as well as Binary Replication and features such as Hot Standby. 
     
     
     
     
    Joshua D. Drake     November 20, 2017

    PostgresConf 2019: Back on the island and call for papers

    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

    Community member profile: Joshua Brandt & BrandtVX

    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

    CFP for PostgresConf Silicon Valley closes August 15th

    You will want to mark your calendars folks on August 15th the Call for papers for PostgresConf Silicon Valley will close. That is just two weeks away!

    So let's point your Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari app to this link right here and get your presentation submitted.

    This is the inaugural Silicon Valley conference and from the current submitted papers it is shaping up to be a fantastic event. We can't wait to see everyone and continue our mission of:




    Joshua D. Drake     July 31, 2018

    Community Days: BigApplePy and DockerNYC

    In 2016 we started working with horizontal communities. We wanted to make sure that PgConf US was an inclusive community that advocated not only for the best database in the world but also all the external Open Source technologies that make the best database in the world the best platform in the world. 

    This year we wanted to continue building a stronger community through relationships and our efforts are proving successful. We have joined forces with several horizontal communities to bring original and related content to PgConf US. The first is Big Apple Py. They are working with PgConf US to run a full track of Python content as well as a development workshop. 


    The workshop is particularly interesting as it will focus on a code sprint to develop a mature and user friendly Python based conference software. I wonder if they know we already use a Ruby on Rails solution...

    We also have a great workshop being presented by DockerNYC and Jesse White: Automating production ready databases in Docker
    DockerNYC
    PgConf US 2017 is less than two weeks away and we continue to work with communities to bring you even more new content! Stay tuned as we expect to announce more workshops in the next few days. If you haven't purchased your tickets, today would be a good day.
    Joshua D. Drake     March 15, 2017

    PGConf APAC 2018

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

    Following the success of two consecutive pan-Asia Postgres event - pgDay Asia 2016 and pgDay Asia 2017 held along with FOSSASIA, we are pleased to announce PGConf APAC 2018 to be held in Singapore from 22nd to 24th of March, 2018. Once again the conference will be held along with FOSSASIA - one of the largest FOSS conference on the planet. PGConf APAC will be PostgreSQL conference series for all PostgreSQL enthusiasts and users in the Asia Pacific region.
    For more details on FOSSASIA - http://2018.fossasia.org
    You will be able to enjoy one of the largest PostgreSQL conference in Asia and one of the largest FOSS conferences to meet like minded individuals in the same week!
    pgDay Asia 2016 and pgDay Asia 2017 would not have been possible without your awesome talks and we would like to invite speakers from all over the globe to present at the PGConf APAC 2018. We would like to open Call For Paper for PGConf APAC 2018. Some of the topics which can be used for submitting a talk are-
    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
    For more examples you can refer to the papers which were presented at last year's event - 2016 and 2017.
    Of course we are happy to accept paper proposals on any other interesting topics as well.
    To submit you proposal for presentation please go to this link - http://2018.pgconfapac.org/cfp
    Venue
    To be Announced
    Call for Papers
    2017-10-10: Proposals acceptance begins
    2017-12-04: Proposals acceptance ends
    2017-12-13: Authors of accepted proposals contacted
    If you need any additional information please contact our team at pgconfapac(at)googlegroups(dot)com.
    This conference is organized by the PostgreSQL people from Asian communities. If you have any question, feel free to contact us on pgconfapac(at)googlegroups(dot)com.
    For sponsorship related queries please get in touch with our team at apac-organizer(at)pgconf(dot)org.
    Joshua D. Drake     October 10, 2017