Joshua D. Drake Blog Posts

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

    PostgresConf US 2018: A Review of the largest PostgresConf ever and a recap of the last 12 months!

    The PostgresConf team wanted to provide some information on the performance of PostgresConf US 2018 and events over the past year, as well as potentially answer some pending questions. Ultimately our goals are about people, which is why our motto is, "People, Postgres, Data." With each event we hold, each talk we accept, and how we train our volunteers, we make sure people (the benefit for and to), postgres, and data are considered and included. If there is no benefit or consideration to the growth of people, it is not an option.


    With that in mind, please read on to see how our focus on people, Postgres, and data had an impact on the community over the last year.

    Since PostgresConf US 2017 we have had events in:
    • Philadelphia 
    • Ohio (in combination with Ohio Linux Fest) 
    • South Africa 
    • Seattle 
    • Austin 
    • Jersey City (PostgresConf US 2018) 
    • Nepal 
    All of these events are non-profit and volunteer organized.





    PostgresConf US 2018


    Logistics


    • Days: 5, 2 for training, 3 for Breakout sessions and summits
    • Official Attendance #: 601
    • Content: Over 207 sessions submitted
    • Sessions: Over 108 sessions provided 


    Partner Support (Sponsors): 28


    We had a record level of support from partners this year and due to this support we are going to be forced to find a new venue for next year. Our Jersey city location no longer has the capacity to hold us. This will increase costs but initial indications are that our partners understand this and are willing to support us financially to help continue the success of our efforts and keep costs reasonable for attendees.


    Diversity


    This year we were able to work with Women Who Code NYC. They provided many volunteers and we provided them with the ability to experience some of the best Postgres based content available, at no charge. We expect great things from this budding relationship in the future.


    Professional Growth


    We held a Career and Talent Fair. A dozen companies were present to connect with potential employees.

    We also held a surprisingly well attended speed mentoring session for potential employees (Especially helpful for many of the WWC) on resumes and interview practices.

    Leadership


    This year saw the continued elevation of our primary leadership: Viral Shah, Lloyd Albin, Amanda Nystrom, and Debra Cerda. They continued to increase their presence and responsibility within the conference and dedicated hundreds of hours voluntarily to the growth of people. Our international members have also increased their leadership roles with our on-the-ground teams in South Africa and China.


    Summits



    We had our standard Regulated Industry Summit but also a Greenplum Summit. As I am sure you are aware Greenplum is an Open Source, Postgres based MPP database. They were by far the most popular booth in the entire conference and their summit was very well attended. The relationship with Pivotal and the success of the Greenplum Summit allowed us to learn new ways to bring together the entire Postgres Ecosystem. We expect to run a minimum of 3 more summits at PostgresConf US 2019.



    Contribution


    We were able to have several excellent (and long) meetings with leaders of Pivotal, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon on how they can begin contributing more back to Postgresql.org. All of them expressed a deep drive to contribute and a desire to learn more about the core community. Of particular note is Google, who would like to contribute the following back to the community:

    https://github.com/google/pg_page_verification

    We discussed with them the process and various changes they would need to make (license and code style, etc.). We also educated them on the PostgreSQL.Org rigorous review process.

    Microsoft is reviewing how they can contribute but they showed an interest in build farm nodes, professional technical writers to help with docs, and potentially code contribution to our Windows port.

    International Collaboration

    The Chinese Open Source Promotion Union launched the Chinese Postgres Association. We invited them to PostgresConf US and introduced them to the United States Community. We expect great things from the Chinese community in the future.

    Future


    As we continue to build up our on-the-ground teams, we will likely hold less events in the U.S. this year. We will instead be focused on a smaller number of events in the U.S. and adding events in China and Europe. We have had an amazing amount of support from the Chinese community and the current goal is 1000 attendees for that conference.

    Our current plan of events for the U.S. are


    • San Jose (October 2018) 
    • Philadelphia 
    • PostgresConf US (Manhattan) 

    Future International Events


    • October 2018. 
    • Spring of 2019. 
    • Spring of 2019. 

    This may change as we are actively recruiting on-the-ground teams to help us grow the community.

    Collaboration


    Our goal is collaboration and growth with other PostgreSQL community and Ecosystem efforts. We want to allow each potential community member to find a home. A place that they feel positive about contributing to the community as a whole. As we continue to grow as a community, it is vital to recognize that each member has their own needs, desires, and return on investment requirement (professional or personal) that they are seeking.

    Tidbits of note



    On DBEngines PostgreSQL is the 4th most popular database but the significance is that of the other 3, we are the only ones that are growing in popularity. 
    Joshua D. Drake     May 07, 2018

    Let's meet some speakers for PostgresConf US 2018!

    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.
     
     
     
     
    Joshua D. Drake     April 05, 2018     data speaker spotlight postgres PostgresConf community

    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

    PostgresConf US 2018, Financial Review



    The following table contains a summary profit and loss statement for PostgresConf US 2018.



    In review of these numbers two things will probably jump out at you:
    1. Venue and F&B of 238,000.12
    2. Net Revenue of 202,201.62
    Yes, we spent almost 250,000.00 dollars on the venue and food and beverage. In fact, the Food and Beverage alone was over 135,000.00 dollars. 

    We were fortunate to have very strong ticket sales as well as partner support through Sponsorships. This support will allow us to not only meet our financial requirements for PostgresConf Silicon Valley 2018 but will help us make our financial requirements for our European, Chinese, and US conferences in 2019. We are also hoping to set aside more money for our popular diversity and professional development initiatives.

    The Chairs would like to thank all our organizers, volunteers, partners and attendees for helping us continue advocacy of People, Postgres, Data!
    Joshua D. Drake     May 25, 2018

    PostgreSQL High Availability and Geographic Locality using consul by Sean Chittenden




    The presentation includes an introduction and setup for consul as the means of providing highly available PostgreSQL in local and geographically disparate data centers or cloud providers. The presentations includes:

    *) Introduction to consul and its architecture
    *) Setup of a single consul cluster
    *) Setup for a few sample database instances (OLAP and OLTP)
    *) Firewall requirements
    *) Integration with bind, djbdns, and dnsmasq
    *) Setup geographic failover to two different data centers and cloud providers
    *) Various Best Practices tips and suggestions
    *) Q&A

    Joshua D. Drake     April 25, 2017

    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

    Discord Server, New live webinars and more!

    Adaptation Lizard

    As Postgres Conference pushes forward in the brave new world, we evolve and increase the ability for the People, Postgres, Data community to succeed. As a part of our positive adaptation we have a new website that features upcoming events, professional content (written and video), and the best in our written community via “Community Content”.

    Discord

    In an effort to provide a modern, friendly, and inclusive community platform, we have launched a Discord server for all things Postgres. We are providing a helpful experience with rule #1 being: Be Nice. Our discussions will branch out beyond the core of PostgreSQL and provide a forum for success with Postgres and related technologies. Join us for what is guaranteed to be a refreshing experience for the community: https://discord.gg/tjxNBCz

    2021

    We are seeking feedback from our community on 2021 in-person events. We are currently considering the East Coast event for October 2021 and the West Coast event for December 2021. Please help us in determining the type of event you would like to participate in!

    Upcoming live events

    We currently have the following webinars scheduled through October:

    Joshua D. Drake     August 25, 2020

    An Invisible Disease

    Invisible Disease Awareness

    “According to the Disabled World website, an estimated 10% of the U.S. population has what could be considered an ‘invisible’ disease, defined as a health condition that causes significant impairment and undermines the overall quality of life but does not outwardly manifest itself in ways that are apparent to others.” [1]



    While normally our focus is Postgres, we wanted to take a moment to bring attention to the People side of People, Postgres, Data. May is mental health and Ehlers-Danlos awareness month. Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a rare condition that affects the collagen throughout the entire body, resulting in dislocations, subluxations, lack of joint stability and support, tendinosis, and debilitating pain. There is no cure and the symptoms are life long.

     

    In 2020, PostgresWarrior (AKA Amanda Nystrom) was diagnosed with Hypermobile EDS and Fibromyalgia. She is an instrumental and invaluable member of the People, Postgres, Data community. She has driven us forward in ways that so many of us never see and yet require to succeed. Many of our community are affected by invisible diseases - let's take a moment to appreciate what they accomplish and fight for in Postgres/Open Source.

    Upcoming webinars | RSVP here

    • May 25, 1pm ET: Creating a Resilient PostgreSQL Cluster with Kubegres

    • June 15, 1pm ET: When it All Goes Wrong - Incident Response in Large Postgres Databases

    • June 23, 1pm ET: Making Postgres Fly on Kubernetes

    • June 29, 1pm ET: Implementing Cluster File Encryption in Postgres

    24x7x365 Postgres & Linux servicesCommand Prompt, Inc.The last of the original Postgres companies

    Sponsored

    Community Chat

    Our Discord Channel has 2000 community members waiting to participate in your Postgres success. Join us today with a community that has rule #1 of: Be Nice.

    Podcasts








    1. https://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/072417p32.shtml
    Joshua D. Drake     May 19, 2021     eds postgresql

    Summertime, Summertime

    Brass tacks

    • Silicon Valley is selling tickets briskly, get yours today and join us at the largest gathering of Postgres leaders on the West Coast.

    • South Africa is set to release their schedule shortly. Watch the site for opportunities in October.

    • We have hinted at digital events in the past and they are in the final planning stages. Digital events will encompass best in class content from our community in the format of Webinars, Q&A sessions and Professional electronic training opportunities. Watch for more news on these unique opportunities as we get closer to Fall 2019.

    Seasons

    It is the middle of summer, and as Glenn Frey would say, “The Heat is on!” Summer is the time when everyone is busy, yet nobody is busy. You have a contract to execute but the signer is on vacation. You have a project to complete but your digital nomad developer took off for the beach. Suddenly even checks may be delayed because of a long weekend up in the mountains. It is also a time to catch up on the things that may have been overlooked. When the person driving your priorities is on vacation it is easier to step back and observe your purpose.

     

    Introduction

    At PostgresConf 2019 in Manhattan we organized a Diversity and Inclusion panel with the help of Plato. The panel was well attended, but not as much as we had hoped. This fact outlined that we had more work to do on expanding our leadership position within Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Professional Postgres community.

    We take this topic very seriously and we would consider PostgresConf and our focus on People, Postgres, Data a success if the only outcome was for all to feel welcome and supported within our community. Thankfully we have organizers and volunteers who are passionate about this very topic.

    We would like to introduce the PostgresConf and PgCentral Foundation DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) Work Group:

    • Debra Cerda: DEI Organizer

    • Henrietta Dombrovskaya: Contributor

    • Ryan Lambert: Contributor

    • Mara Lemagie: Contributor

    • Vikki McCormick: Contributor

    • Amanda Nystrom: Co-Chair Sponsor

    Over the coming months we will be continuing to communicate our passion, our purpose, our action and our accomplishments in bringing true Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to our community.

    “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus” -- Martin Luther King

     

    PostgresConf Philly which is organized in conjunction with Philly Postgres sold out in July! A packed room, great content and glorious collaboration was available to all for free due to the generous support of the Wharton School for Business!

    As we continue to build our professional relationships, connections with academia are going to be vital. Academia is one of the few spaces that Postgres has not been able to make assertive gains in adoption and it crucial to the long term vision of our community that Academia recognize and adopt Postgres as the World’s Database and a viable option for teaching the next generation of data experts.

     

    International communication

    As our community grows Internationally with strong ties to Asia, and countries in the Southern Hemisphere it becomes difficult to connect with those cultures using our normal nomenclature. In our last newsletter we used a quote meant to be a compliment and challenge to the Western communities to try new things. The quote was about pigs ears and how they are delicious. The quote was interpreted by some in the Asia community as negative.

    While writing this newsletter, we had used a spelling variation for the term “Wowzers” which in American pop culture is meant to be an exclamation of amazement. However in other cultures it maintains a negative connotation causing us to change the term to Kapow. These communication challenges show us that we must be open and without pride in our communication. We must show patience and understanding with cultures that are not like ours and that the communities that are able to achieve this will lead the future of Open Source and Postgres.

    “Every human is like all other humans, some other humans, and no other human” — Clyde Kluckhon

    Joshua D. Drake     July 31, 2019