Joshua D. Drake Blog Posts

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

PGConf US in partnership with the Austin PostgreSQL User Group (AUSPUG) is pleased to announce that the call for papers for PGConf Local: Austin is now open.


AUSTIN, June 28, 2017 -- The inaugural PGConf US Local: Austin Conference (PGConf Austin) will be held November 3 - 4, 2017, at the Norris Conference and Event Center (2525 W. Anderson Ln #365, Austin, TX 78757) located in northwest Austin.


This two day, multi track conference is a perfect opportunity for users, developers, business analysts and enthusiasts from the Southwest to amplify Postgres and participate with the Postgres community.
The Call for Papers for PGConf Austin is now open, and presentation proposals can be submitted at https://pgconf.us/conferences/Austin2017

The call for papers for PGConf Austin will be open until Sunday, August 20, 2017, and speakers will be notified of acceptance/decline no later than Monday, August 28, 2017. Registration for PGConf Austin will also open August 28.

Conference Schedule:
  • Friday, November 3, 2017: Half-day Trainings with Postgres experts
  • Saturday, November 4, 2017: Breakout Sessions (lunch and coffee break provided)


Conference speakers receive complimentary entry to the breakout sessions on November 4 -- the half-day trainings are separately priced sessions. As a nonprofit event series, funding is currently not available for speaker travel and lodging accommodations. Everyone is encouraged to submit a talk or training to the first PGConf supported nonprofit educational events in Texas, and join the growing PostgreSQL community.
Sponsorship Opportunities
PGConf Local series is supported by its generous sponsors, including Diamond Sponsor Amazon Web Services and Platinum Sponsors 2ndQuadrant, Compose, and OpenSCG, as well as Media Sponsor AmplifyPostgres. Business leaders and companies interested in sponsoring PGConf US nonprofit events can view the Conference Prospectus .


About PGConf US:
PGConf US is a nonprofit conference series with a focus on growing the Postgres community through increased awareness and education of Postgres. PGConf US is known for its highly attended national conference held in Jersey City, New Jersey, each year, and has expanded to a local series for 2017.


The PGConf Local series partners with local Postgres and open source groups to bring dynamic and engaging Postgres related content and professional training experience to their local communities in major metroplexes. 2017 host cities include Philadelphia, Seattle, and Austin, as well as Internationally in South Africa with more locations to follow.


Media Contact: organizers@pgconf.us

Joshua D. Drake     June 28, 2017

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

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:

 

Joshua D. Drake     August 07, 2019

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



Seattle Postgres and People, Postgres, Data were present at the 20th Anniversary Event of LinuxFest Northwest this weekend! The “Fest” is a conference built around Free and Open Source Software, taking place in Bellingham, Washington. It is a true gathering of over 2000 Open Source practitioners. There was also a well attended Postgres Track and an “Ask the experts” panel.

Highlighted Find

Also at LinuxFest Northwest was YottaDB. YottaDB uses the PostgreSQL wire protocol to allow universal driver access to their in-memory transactional database. This has become a popular way to utilize the maturity of the PostgreSQL code base and reduce overhead in having to maintain a protocol and drivers.

Ecosystem Content

Requesting Feedback

We are looking for good dates to host PostgresConf Philly in July/August 2019 and we are actively reviewing new markets for other Postgres Conference events including Texas, Vancouver B.C., and Seattle. If you have feedback on opportunities in these areaa including dates, venues, or a desire to join the amazing People, Postgres, Data team, let us know at organizers@postgresconf.org.

 

Noteworthy Commits & Releases

The PostgreSQL git repo was largely bug fixes and updates the past couple of weeks but we have some great releases including migration tools and Distributed SQL:

 

Join our community

Upcoming Events



People, Postgres, Data and The World’s Database

 

The World’s Database celebrates all of Postgres, including whichever version, fork, or hybrid used to build yourself, your business, or your hobby. We have Open and Closed Source technologies. We have amazing extensions (TimescaleDB), unique implementations (Yugabyte), and respected forks to solve specific problems such as Greenplum, Azure, and Aurora. We have meetups where professionals can gather to collaborate and network in all major U.S. markets. Most importantly we are an inclusive community celebrating everything surrounding the maturity, extensibility, and growth of the Postgres ecosystem.

Joshua D. Drake     April 29, 2019

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!

Joshua D. Drake     January 20, 2021

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

     

    It is late August, 2019. This is the time where we are usually prepping for the very busy fall season and not much else. However, this is the Year of Postgres and everyone is driving 200MPH down the ecosystem highway (321.8688/KPH). We are going to kick off this newsletter with some exciting information about the community.

    Events

    PostgresConf has launched Digital Events! The goal of Digital Events is to open our education platform year round to all members of the community. Our first series of events will be held with our ecosystem partner YugabyteDB and their “Distributed SQL Webinar Series.” This is a series of free-to-attend Webinars exploring Distributed SQL from leaders in the field.

     

    PostgreConf Silicon Valley tickets are going at a brisk pace and half day trainings are almost sold out. Register today to reserve your seat before prices go up on September 1st!

     

    Right after Silicon Valley, PostgresConf South Africa is kicking off. This conference has grown by leaps and bounds over the last two years. We highly recommend attending for anyone who can!

     

    PGConf.IN (India) has announced that their conference will be held in February 2020!

    Meetups

    We have seen the launch of three new meetups this month:

    • Los Angeles Postgres The first meetup is planned for late October or early November as we continue to build the Silicon Beach community.
    • Toronto Postgres Similar to Los Angeles, the first meetup is planned for late October or early November.
    • Charm City Postgres This meetup was formed by long time community member Robert Treat.

     

    Several other meetups are growing quickly: 

     

    Interested in speaking or hosting a meetup? Contact us and we’ll connect you with the right people! 

    Learn

    Here is a short, great introduction tutorial on running PostgreSQL in Docker by Igal Sapir, Los Angeles Postgres organizer. Everybody has 13 minutes.

     

    Shawn Wang from our friends at High Go has provided an insightful write-up on AES Performance.

    Ecosystem

    TimescaleDB is running a “State of Postgres” survey. Please take five minutes and help them out! They have also announced a new Distributed Timeseries product.

     

    VMWare has just acquired Greenplum and PostgreSQL supporting company Pivotal.

    Postgresql.org

    PostgreSQL versions 11.5, 10.10, 9.6.15, 9.5.19, 9.4.24, and 12 Beta 3 are now out in the wild and addressing several important security concerns and bug fixes.

     

    ---

     

    Have news you’d like included in future newsletters? Contact us.

    Joshua D. Drake     August 23, 2019

    Tell us about your commitment and contribution to the Postgres Community

    For over 10 years, EnterpriseDB (EDB) has been working with the community and enterprises to drive Postgres forward. EDB is one of the top PostgreSQL community contributors. Two of our team members are part of Postgres Core team, while 4 are committers, and 6 are named contributors. We invest heavily into Postgres performance, scalability, availability, migration, integration and support to make sure that enterprises can take advantage of Postgres' rapid innovation cycle and advanced capabilities.

     

    What growth pattern do you expect for yourself as well as Postgres as a whole?

    Postgres adoption is exploding and we can see that in our business results. Today, we support 92 of the Fortune 500 and 311 of the Forbes Global 2000. Our customers look to us for a reliable, high-performing, and cost-effective data management platform based on open source PostgreSQL.

     

    Our customers are using EDB Postgres for mission critical applications. Their databases range all the way up to 50 TB with some handling over 50K transaction per second in environments that require 99.99%+ availability.

     

    Our customers’ confidence in Postgres and EDB is no surprise. Postgres has been the #1 open source relational database in the DB-Engines.com rankings for two years in a row and EnterpriseDB has been chosen for the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems for six years in a row.

     

     

    How do you plan to assist Postgres in the future?

    EDB continues to invest heavily in Postgres with key projects such as zHeap, Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation, and other efforts focused on performance and scalability.

     

    What is the number one benefit you see within Postgres that everyone should be aware of?

    EDB Postgres has become the general purpose database of choice for digital transformations, offering JSONB document support, GIS-support, EDB Postgres Oracle® compatibility features, key-value pair data, and increasing capabilities for analytical workloads. It has the fastest innovation cycle, the best deployment models, and the lowest cost of any commercial relational database.

     

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

    The best thing about working with the Postgres community is their fast innovation, resulting in extremely reliable code.

     

    Tell us why you believe people should attend PostgresConf 2019 in March.

    PostgreSQL is one of the oldest and most stable open source projects as a result of the commitment of its members and its independence as a stand-alone community. Over the years, Postgres has achieved parity with proprietary platforms in terms of performance and functionality. It has received a warm welcome from businesses looking to roll back database costs and ease vendor lock-in, and leading companies are adopting it with great success. This is just like it was with Linux 15 years ago. Enterprises understand that they have to adopt Postgres or they will be left behind.

     

    Company Description
    EnterpriseDB (EDB), the database platform company for digital business, delivers the premier open source-based data platform for new applications, cloud re-platforming, application modernization, and legacy migration. EDB Is the developer of the most complete Postgres-based database platform.

     

    Joshua D. Drake     February 12, 2019

    PostgresConf US 2018 is in 9 days. Here is the obligatory "Buy your tickets" reminder! If you look around (a Google search of Gold sponsor Google Cloud is a good place to start) you will find a lot of discount codes.

    In 2017 we launched a community wide effort to better recognize contributors for not only the conference but the wider Postgres Community. We continued this effort in 2018 and are pleased to have many speaker profiles available, with more being published every day:

    As one of the Chairs of PostgresConf, I am honored by the resounding support from sponsors, speakers, and volunteers to help create a fantastic event for all attendees. It has been a pleasure working toward the common goal of creating a global, non-profit, Postgres Conference series.