Why did you attend PgConf US?

Our company is exploring the use of PostgreSQL as an additional DBMS choice to support Vertex Enterprise, our tax technology platform. Attending the conference offered me an opportunity to immerse myself into a variety of topics around PostgreSQL, as well as the chance to interact with other users to tap into their experiences.


Tell us a little bit about your project or how you use PostgreSQL:

Vertex Enterprise is a global tax management end-to-end solution that integrates all tax processes with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and business intelligence (BI) systems on a single platform using a tax performance engine.   The solution is a blend of technologies that surround a Java based processing and calculation engine. This includes rich UI's, import, export, business intelligence / reporting, and big data integration. The foundation of our database leverages a multi-dimensional database structure, as well as other structures whose design varies based upon the needs of a particular function so that we can optimize performance. (ie. import/export/reporting).

The official brochure provides a high level overview of the capabilities and interfaces that our DBMS must support.  

Why did you chose PostgreSQL for your project?

PostgreSQL checks many of the boxes that we are looking for in our consideration of an additional DBMS option.


Some of these include:

* Performance
* Lower cost
* Multi-tenancy support 
* Suitable for deployment on premise, in a hosted environment, and in the cloud
* Industry acceptance
* Ease of administration on locally administered instances
* Features characteristic of an enterprise strength database (auditing, partitioning, replication, procedural language support)


This was your first PGConf US, was it a last minute decision? Do you think it was worth it? If so, why?

The conference was on our radar since the beginning of the year, and it exceeded expectations. Listening to and interacting with actual contributors to the product is not something you have the opportunity to do at many conferences. The sessions covered a variety of topics around PostgreSQL that were of interest (performance, tuning, feature discussion, lessons learned, cloud deployment options, optimization, etc).


Would you attend PgConf US again?

Yes, definitely. 


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

My "day job" keeps me pretty busy, but as far as sharing our experience with PostgreSQL, I am willing to contribute in that way :) .

Pivotal Sponsor Highlight Blog for PostgresConf 2019

 

Written by:

Jacque Istok, Head of Data, Pivotal

 

1. Greenplum has its own community; what do you hope to achieve by joining the Postgres community and PostgresConf?

Both interest and adoption of Postgres have skyrocketed over the last two years, and we feel fortunate to be a part of the extended community. We have worked very hard to uplevel the base version of Postgres within Greenplum to more current levels and to be active in the Postgres community. We see Greenplum as a parallel (and analytic focused) implementation of Postgres, and we encourage the community to continue to embrace both the technology and the goal of the Greenplum project, which is Postgres at scale.

 

2. Are you planning to provide any new tech (PG features, etc.)?

This year we plan to announce several new things for both Greenplum and Postgres. We’re introducing new innovations in our cloud offerings in the marketplaces of AWS, Azure, and GCP. We also have major news about both our natural language at-scale analytics solution based on Apache Solr, and our multi-purpose machine learning and graph analytics library Apache MADlib. The next major release of Greenplum is a major focus as well, differentiating Greenplum from each of its competitors and bringing us ever closer to the latest versions of Postgres.

 

3. Are there any rising stars in the community you’d like to give props to?

While it seems a little self-serving, I would like to take the opportunity to give props to the Pivotal Data Team. This team is a 300+ worldwide organization that helps our customers, our prospects, and the community to solve real world and really hard data problems—solved in part through Postgres technology. They all attack these use cases with passion and truly make a difference in the lives of the people that their solutions touch. I couldn’t wish to work with a finer group.

 

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

The number one benefit of Postgres is really its flexibility. This database chameleon can be used for SQL, NoSQL, Big Data, Microservices, time series data, and much more. In fact, our latest analytic solution, MADLib Flow, leverages Postgres as an operational engine. For example, Machine Learning models created in Greenplum can be pushed into a restful API as part of an agile continuous integration/continuous delivery pipeline easily and efficiently—making Postgres the power behind what I still like to think of as #DataOps.

 

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

 

I deeply admire the passion and consistency of the community behind Postgres, constantly and incrementally improving this product over decades. And because Greenplum is based on Postgres, we get to interact with this vast community of talent. We are also able to more seamlessly interact with ecosystem products that already work with Postgres, making the adoption of Greenplum that much easier.

 

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

 

PostgresConf is going to be awesome, and I can’t wait for it to start! With Pivotal, Amazon, and EnterpriseDB headlining as Diamond sponsors, Greenplum Summit (along with multiple other summits), and high-quality speakers and content across the board, this year’s PostgresConf promises to be bigger and better than ever and surely won’t disappoint.

 

We’re thrilled to be back to present the second annual Greenplum Summit on March 19th at PostgresConf. Our theme this year is “Scale Matters”, and what we’ve seen with our customers is that every year it matters more and more. Our users are part of organizations that are generating tons of data and their need to easily and quickly ingest and interrogate all of it is paramount. This is true even more now than ever before as the insights that can be found not only help differentiate them from their competitors, but are also used to build better products and increase customer loyalty.

 

The day will be filled with real-world case studies from Greenplum users including Morgan Stanley, the European Space Astronomy Centre, Insurance Australia Group, Purdue University, Baker Hughes (a GE company), Conversant, and others, plus presentations and deep-dive tech sessions for novices and experts alike.

2ndQuadrant Sponsor Highlight Blog for PostgresConf 2019

 As part of the countdown to PostgresConf US 2019, learn more about about featured Platinum Sponsor 2ndQuadrant, including their commitment to partnering with and contributing to the Postgres community.

 

Tell us about the recent uptick in Oracle to Postgres migrations.

Licensing costs of Oracle is a significant factor for businesses looking to migrate towards PostgreSQL. Not only is PostgreSQL a more cost effective solution, but it provides enterprise-level capabilities and customization options. The increasing demand for migration services from Oracle to PostgreSQL can also be attributed to the availability of PostgreSQL in the cloud.

 

Where do you see the Postgres market going?

PostgreSQL has been gaining traction with every release; interest and usage by large enterprises worldwide is growing exponentially due to the robust capabilities it provides. 2ndQuadrant intends to continue their active contributions in development and supports the overall growth of PostgreSQL.

 

 Do you have any big wins this year?

2Q PGConf 2018 had a successful second year bringing together PostgreSQL developers and users. Both speakers and attendees enjoyed the combination of technical and use case topics as well as the diverse range of networking opportunities. 

Sri Rangarajan, Lead Software Engineer at Enova International, commented saying he appreciates 2ndQuadrant’s hard work in “promoting and fostering a savvy, healthy and helpful community to welcome newcomers just like [it] did for [him] 5 years ago!”

For the second year in a row, PostgreSQL has been named DBMS of the Year by DB-Engines. This shows that developers and users alike are acknowledging the robust and versatile capabilities that it has to offer.

 

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

PostgreSQL's advanced features cater to a broad range of use cases all within the same DBMS. Rather than going for edge case solutions, developers are relying on the absolute reliability of the hyperconverged database to simplify their production deployments.

 

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

The Postgres community is one of the easiest global communities to work with. There is an open mindset all around and a common goal of growing the Postgres ecosystem as a whole. 

 

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

Conferences are a great way for people in the PostgreSQL community to come together and share knowledge and ideas, which is the true spirit of open source. It is very exciting to see into the future developments of the project from the people who contribute so much to its growth.

It is a great way for members of the community to come together in person to share knowledge in different areas of the technology, describe practical use cases, and give sneak previews into cutting edge technologies for future versions of PostgreSQL.

 

About 2ndQuadrant:

2ndQuadrant provides PostgreSQL Solutions for the Enterprise - reliably deploying them on the platform of your choice and providing 24/7 Production Support. Our solutions address all aspects of your database ecosystem, ensuring high availability, disaster recovery, backup & failover management, and much more. 

Moreover, we provide tools to make your deployment process simple and reliable. With over 100 years of combined code contributions to the PostgreSQL project, our engineers ensure that your PostgreSQL solutions are fully supported in your production environment.

Visit the 2ndQuadrant team in the Exhibit Hall in the Metropolitan Ballroom on Wednesday, March 20, and Thursday, March 21.  

Check out the full schedule for PostgresConf US 2019, and buy your tickets soon!

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

Welcome to a new and bigger year for Postgres in 2018! As our events have grown and evolved, so has our branding. We started as a small pgDay event, grown to a larger pgConf and now we are happy to announce that we matured into a full week long event called PostgresConf. PostgresConf US 2018 is focused on People, Postgres and Data. People are the driving force behind the Postgres Ecosystem from the hackers writing the code, to the advocates telling the world about Postgres and to the administrators and developers using Postgres day to day. They will all be represented at PostgresConf.   Tickets We have excellent news for you all: registration is open for PostgresConf US 2018 and discounted Early Bird tickets are just $399 -- $200 off the regular $599 -- and available through January 31, 2018, at https://postgresconf.org/conferences/2018 Please note that the early bird registration admits one person to the main conference sessions on Wednesday April 18 - Friday April 20, 2018, the Regulated Industry Summit, the Greenplum Summit, the Community Summit, and all evening activities from Wednesday - Friday. This registration does NOT include any training sessions on Monday April 16 or Tuesday April 17. Tickets for the training sessions are available separately, at $199 for half-day training and $499 for a full day training. Day passes will be available for single day admission Wednesday through Friday, for $299 -- why not register early and get all 3 days for just $100 more?! About our Conference The Postgres Ecosystem is more than just the exceptional PostgreSQL database. It encompasses tools, solution, and services that enterprises demand for their mission-critical applications. PostgresConf brings the whole ecosystem under a single roof so enterprises can learn about all of the possible ways Postgres can be used in their environments.   This year, we are back in Jersey City from April 16th to April 20th at The Westin Jersey City Newport.  We also listened to our past attendees and expanded our training classes to 2 days so on April 16th and 17th, we are pleased to offer training sessions taught by professional trainers to bring additional depth to your learning experience. That will be followed by 3 days of great talks on April 18th - 20th. Additionally, we will host our 4th annual Regulated Industry Summit as well as the inaugural Greenplum Summit. CFP Want to present?  Our CFP is open!  Please visit https://postgresconf.org/conferences/2018 for Call for Papers information.   Where to Stay For those planning to attend, don’t forget to book your room early for the best rates. The Westin Jersey City Newport is the best place to stay and enjoy all conference activities. Attendees will surely mingle at the Westin bar and hallways throughout the afternoon and long into the evening. We have reserved a block of rooms at the special conference rate of $260/night plus applicable taxes for attendees who make their reservations via this dedicated Westin booking page. The hotel block will fill up quickly. The special rates will be available until March 26 or until the group block is sold out.    Sponsors Sponsorship opportunities for the conference are still available. If your business PostgreSQL based products or services or if you are looking to recruit a PostgreSQL expert at our job fair, this is the place to be. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this dynamic and growing ecosystem. Download the sponsorship prospectus at: https://postgresconf.org/conferences/2018/sponsorships Our current premium sponsors are: Diamond: Amazon Web Services, Pivotal Platinum: Compose, OpenSCG, 2ndQuadrant, Microsoft Gold: Cybertec, JetBrains, Citus Data, EnterpriseDB For more information, please visit https://postgresconf.org/conferences/2018 We look forward to seeing you in April!

Attendees of PgConf.US , if you haven't gotten your hotel room booked, now is the time! Our block ends on March 6th. Point your browser over here and book that room. While you wait for your email confirmation from the Westin, you can take some time to review the following talk from PgConf US 2015, ToroDB: a new, open-source, document-oriented, JSON database, built on Postgres.

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.



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

Come as you are

The theme of Postgres Conference for 2020 is: Come as you are. We want everyone to feel welcome. You are welcome for your love of People, Postgres, Data and a desire to ascend beyond the box. It isn’t about your race, gender, sexuality, political affiliation, or love of blueberry flavored popcorn. It is 100% about you, the creativity and excellence that only you can bring to our community.

Postgres Conference 2020 CFP now open

We are actively seeking content for the largest Postgres Conference in the world, set to be held from March 23rd to 27th, 2020  at the Marriott Marquis, Time Square! Please submit your content here.

Postgres Conference Silicon Valley 2019

Postgres Conference Silicon Valley doubled its attendance, making it the largest Postgres  Conference on the West coast ever! We are very pleased to be able to bring so many community members together for education, fun, and ecosystem support!

 

Training

• Postgres Conference is now offering live digital training throughout the year. Continuing on our mission of creating exceptional Postgres people, you can now not only register for pre-defined training but request specific training and we will connect you with a class! The current training options are:
• PostgreSQL Performance and Maintenance
• Finding and Fixing slow queries
• Postgres + Kubernetes: yes it really is a match made in heaven
• PostgreSQL Replication deployment and best practices
• PgPool-II Performance and best practices

 

Register here: https://postgresconf.org/conferences/Postgres-Digital-Training-Series

 

Digital Events

We have free digital events coming up including topics such as Kubernetes, DistributedSQL, Backups, Postgis and many more. Coming up: 

• Yugabyte Digital Webinar Series.
• Heimdall Data is providing a Webinar on October 22nd on Enterprise Authentication and Connections pooling

What is the future of Postgres?

When you observe the ecosystem you can’t help but ask yourself where the community and software is going next. It is without question that the future of data will reside in something Postgres. It may be PostgreSQL, Cockroach, Yugabyte, Aurora, Azure, or workload specific Postgres such as Greenplum. Based on the sheer number of successful software adventures that are based on Postgres, there is no doubt in our minds that it is the future. 

This is why the inclusivity of People, Postgres, Data is vital to the continued success of the community. It is also why we invite all of Postgres to Come As You Are from March 23rd - 27th, 2020 at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan! 

Isn’t Postgres, PostgreSQL?

Yes, and no. It is true that the term Postgres is sometimes used as a short version of PostgreSQL which allows easier pronunciation of the project and software name. It is also true that PostgreSQL contains a great deal of Postgres code but it is not technically Postgres. In fact, Postgres predates PostgreSQL by quite a few years and had an interim fork called Postgres95 before the PostgreSQL project was founded. That is why we use Postgres as an inclusive term for all software Postgres including many that some would consider forks. Fun fact:  Did you know that Informix is based on Illustra, a commercial Postgres fork from 1997?

Call for Papers

We are actively seeking people to deliver exceptional educational opportunities at Postgres Conference 2020. Postgres Conference is the perfect opportunity for students, hobbyists, and professionals to exhibit their knowledge in solving problems that are People, Postgres, or Data related. Submit your proposal today.

Instructor lead Digital Training

We have the following training opportunities in November and December:

• November 12th: PostgreSQL Performance and Maintenance
• November 14th: Finding and Fixing Slow Queries in PostgreSQL
• November 21st: PostgreSQL and Kubernetes
• December 10th: PostgreSQL Replication deployment and best practices
• December 12th: PGPool-II: Performance and best practices

Register here.

Webinars

We have the following webinars in November:

• Nov 13: Designing a Change Data Capture and Two Data Center Architecture for a Distributed SQL Database
• Nov 14: Yugabyte DB 2.0 Jepsen Test Results and Distributed Transactions Algorithms in Google Spanner, YugabyteDB and CockroachDB
• Nov 20: Zero Down-Time Oracle to Cloud-Native PostgreSQL Migrations

Find more information here.

Interesting projects

• http://postgrest.org/en/v6.0/ PostgREST is a standalone web server that turns your PostgreSQL database directly into a RESTful API. The structural constraints and permissions in the database determine the API endpoints and operations.
• https://www.haproxy.org/ HAProxy is a free, very fast and reliable solution offering high availability, load balancing, and proxying for TCP and HTTP-based applications. It is particularly suited for very high traffic web sites and powers quite a number of the world's most visited ones. Over the years it has become the de-facto standard opensource load balancer, is now shipped with most mainstream Linux distributions, and is often deployed by default in cloud platforms. Related content.