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.

You can RSVP at the NYC PostgreSQL Meetup and as always, @amplifypostgres !

Joshua D. Drake November 20, 2017

PGConf Local: Austin Program Announced and Tickets Available!

It is with great pleasure that we announce the preliminary program for PGConf Local: Austin!

We have received a plethora of positive feedback from the local Postgres and Data communities and we are proud to host a second PGConf event held in Austin in 2017.

Training Opportunity:

Postgres Performance and Maintenance by Joshua D. Drake

Breakout Sessions:

Event Sourcing with a Postgres Event Store by Scott Bellware
Using GIS in PostgreSQL by Lloyd Albin
Trees/Hierarchical Data in the SQL Database by Ryan Murphy
Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL compatibility by James Finnerty
Deep Dive into the RDS PostgreSQL Universe by Grant McAlister
Open Source Communities as Biological Ecosystems by Debra Cerda
The Power of Postgres Replication by Joshua D. Drake
Multi-cloud deployment of PostgreSQL in minutes. by Stephen Holt

Join us! Tickets are available and will go fast!

PGConf Local: Austin is made possible by the wonderful team of volunteers including the Austin PostgreSQL User Group and our sponsors:

Platinum: Compose.IO, OpenSCG, 2ndQuadrant, and Microsoft

Joshua D. Drake November 09, 2017

Presenter Professionalism at Postgres Conferences

Andreas Scherbaum recently tweeted, “Speakers: it is NOT OK to even consider drinking alcohol during a talk! No matter how complicated your talk topic is.” The tweet has caused an interesting debate on Twitter and Facebook. It also caused me to run a poll via @amplifypostgres on the matter.

At the time of this writing almost 70% of the votes on the poll either don’t care or don’t think it is unprofessional for a presenter to drink alcohol while presenting.

One of the counter arguments to presenters consuming alcohol during presentations is that when you are presenting you are representing the conference. The conference wants you to be professional and create an environment that represents that during your talk. Fair enough, but why is it unprofessional?

This sequence of events has me wondering: what is professionalism in reference to presenting at Postgres Conferences? It is certainly not appropriate to be intoxicated while presenting at a professional conference, but that isn’t the question. The question is: why is it inappropriate for an adult to make a legal choice to take a nip or sip beer (or wine) during a presentation? Why is that more unprofessional than not wearing a tie or button up shirt, or wearing shorts or a kilt?

Professionalism is subjective.

Quoting the Oracle-Base blog:

“In my opinion, my obligations to the audience are:

I must care about the content.
I must deliver what I say I will deliver.
I must be honest with the audience about my level of experience in the subject.
I must be honest about my opinions on the subject.
I must be a genuine version of me, minus the swearing.”

I fail at “minus the swearing” but the rest are spot on and should be our focus.

If you do not want presenters to consume alcohol during their presentations, then add it to your Code of Conduct. If it’s not in your Code of Conduct, then let adults take responsibility for themselves and present the best content possible for our community, in whatever way necessary.

Rock on and @amplifypostgres!

Disclaimer: I am writing this opinion as a frequent presenter, not as the Co-Chair of the most electrifying Postgres Conference in the world.

Joshua D. Drake October 27, 2017

PGConf Local: Seattle, final program available

It is with great pleasure that we announce the final program for PGConf Local: Seattle. The schedule is still being hammered out but we have finalized the content that will be presented. Please join us in celebrating Postgres in Seattle!

The conference is the first Postgres event to be held in Seattle since 2009 and we have received a lot of positive feedback from the local Postgres and Data communities. Clearly Postgres has been missed in the Emerald City!

Training Options:

Postgres Performance and Maintenance by Joshua D. Drake
Scaling PostgreSQL Using Linux Containers in the Enterprise by Robert Bernier
Migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL by Jim Mlodgenski

Breakout Sessions:

Track: Ops

Develop intelligent apps on the Azure platform using the Azure Database for PostgreSQL by Sunil Kamath
Tuning PostgreSQL for High Write Workloads by Grant McAlister
POSTGRESQL V10: AN AMPLIFIED VERSION OF POSTGRES by Joshua D. Drake
Enterprise Data Architecture with PostgreSQL by Kevin Kempter
All the dirt on Vacuum by Jim Nasby
Building a scalable time-series database on PostgreSQL by Matvey Arye

Track: Dev

Semantic Search Web System on PostgreSQL by QUAN-HA LE
Increase Application Performance with SQL Auto-Caching; No Code Changes by Roland Lee
Introduction to JavaScript Stored Procedures by Jim Mlodgenski
Under the hood: API integrations and more in an energy efficiency PostgreSQL + Django application by Jennifer Scheuerell
Using GIS in PostgreSQL by Lloyd Albin

Tracks: Big Data, Data Science and AWS/Cloud

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility by Michael Sacks
Data Quality Expert Is Not Harvard's Sexiest Job...But... by Ben Rogojan
GRAKN.AI: the hyper-relational database for knowledge-oriented systems by Haikal Pribadi
Best Practices with Managed PostgreSQL in the Cloud by Jignesh Shah

PGConf Local: Seattle is made possible by the wonderful team of volunteers including the Seattle Postgres User Group and our sponsors:

Platinum: Compose.IO, OpenSCG, 2ndQuadrant, and Microsoft

Joshua D. Drake October 19, 2017

Expanding the NYC Conference

We just announced the dates and the CFP for PGConf 2018, our 7th Postgres Conference in the New York City area. We are back at the Westin in Jersey City April 16th-20th again this year just across the river from Manhattan and an easy PATH ride to all things New York. As we learn from year to year, we evolve based on our attendees and sponsors feedback. This biggest change we are doing this year is expanding the program to be a full 5 days. Our attendees have asked for even more training so we are now starting on Monday with several full-day training classes. We will then roll into half-day tutorials on Tuesday and the full conference schedule starting on Wednesday.

Other changes you will see this year is the 4th Annual Regulated Industry Summit will now be part of the main program. A number of people who wanted to attend the RIS also wanted to attend the tutorials so we removed that conflict while opening up the RIS to a wider audience. Along with RIS, we are hosting two additional summits. Thanks to one of our Diamond Sponsors, Pivotal, we will have the inaugural Greenplum Summit to bring together the best in Big Data, Massively Parallel Processing (MPP), Machine Learning, Graph, AI and Spatial Analytics centered around the Open Source, Postgres derived Greenplum database. Finally, we are having the Open Source Summit for our fellow local Open Source communities with data related technologies such as Python, R and Ruby.

All of this wouldn't be possible without our sponsors:

Diamond

Platinum: Compose, OpenSCG, 2ndQuadrant, Microsoft
Gold: JetBrains, Cybertec, Citus, EnterpriseDB
Silver: Command Prompt

Save the date and submit a talk at:
https://pgconf.org/conferences/2018

Jim Mlodgenski October 18, 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-

Migration projects
Performance troubleshooting and tuning
noSQL and geo-spatial features of Postgres
Unique use-case and customer stories
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

PGConf South Africa

We just finished the first PGConf South Africa and it was a fantastic success. When we first started thinking about the event, we were considering 30 people attending as a good turnout and there were nearly 60 people in attendance. To put that in perspective, the first PGDay New York event in 2012 had 55 people attend. I can honestly say that South Africa and even the whole continent of Africa was craving a PostgreSQL event.

There were some great technical talks on topics like PL/pgSQL stored procedures, PL/Python stored procedures, replication, and security, but what was truly fascinating was the use cases. PostgreSQL is the key data store behind the MeerKAT telescope handling a massive amount of sensor data, is key to helping South African farmers to know where to plant their crop and is utilized extensively through the medical industry in South Africa. The coolest thing learning how PostgreSQL was used for quality control from a 3D printer. In this one, it was not how PostgreSQL was used, it was that the 3D printer was actually a high powered laser that would melt through titanium powder.

Thank you to the sponsors, Quant Solutions and OfferZen to help to make the event possible. And a special thank you to Kobus Wolvaardt who organized the event.

Jim Mlodgenski October 04, 2017

PGConf US Local: Seattle CFP reopened and three new tracks added!

Oh my goodness, Data Days!

When we rescheduled PGConf US Local: Seattle from August to November we did so due to attendee feedback. It was amazing - people didn't want to go to a conference on Saturday in August (I wonder why). I know, we should have known but it was a new model and we tried. We are extremely pleased with the results of the shift in schedule. The conference now takes place during "professional hours" on "professional days."

Image result for creative commons professional

Because of the shift and sponsor support we have added three new tracks, reopened the CFP, and created Data Days. The new tracks are: Big Data, AWS/Cloud, and Data Science. As these three Postgres content areas are Postgres independent we are also requesting that all communities within this realm submit to present. Let's turn PGConf US Local: Seattle into not only the best West Coast Postgres Conference but also the most highly integrated, heterogeneous data event in the Pacific Northwest.

CFP Dates:

Open until: 10/15/2017
Notification: 10/18/2017
CFP Link

Joshua D. Drake September 19, 2017

PGConf US Local: Ohio schedule published

Image result for hyatt regency columbus ohio

PGConf US, in partnership with Ohio Linux Fest, is pleased to announce the schedule PGConf Local: Ohio is now available.

The inaugural PGConf US Local: Ohio Conference (PGConf Ohio) will be held September 29th - 30th at the Hyatt Regency Columbus Ohio (350 North High Street Columbus, Ohio, USA, 43215).

This two day, single track conference is a perfect opportunity for users, developers, business analysts, and enthusiasts from Ohio to amplify Postgres and participate in the Postgres community.

Conference Schedule:

Friday, September 29, 2017: Training. Registration for the PGConf Ohio trainings is open now.

Mastering Postgres Administration: Bruce Momjian

Image result for Joshua D. Drake postgres

Postgres Performance and Maintenance: Joshua D. Drake

Saturday, September 30, 2017: View the free Breakout Sessions

Conference speakers receive complimentary entry to the breakout sessions on September 30th as well as attendance to Ohio Linux Fest as well. The half-day training options on September 29th are separately priced sessions. As a nonprofit event series, funding is currently not available for speaker travel and lodging accommodations.

Sponsorship Opportunities

The PGConf US Local series is supported by its generous sponsors: Diamond Sponsor Amazon Web Services and Platinum Sponsors Compose, 2ndQuadrant, and OpenSCG. Please contact us if you are interested in joining our wonderful sponsors for Ohio or National!

About PGConf US:

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

The PGConf Local series partners with regional Postgres and open source groups to bring dynamic and engaging Postgres related content and professional training experiences to local communities. Host cities of 2017 include Philadelphia, Ohio, Seattle, Austin, and Cape Town, South Africa, with more locations to follow.

Contact: organizers@pgconf.us

Joshua D. Drake August 30, 2017

Announcing PGConf US Mini: NYC on September, 14th 2017

PGConf US in conjunction with NYCPUG is pleased to present PGConf US Mini: NYC on September 14th, 2017. The doors open at 6:30PM and there will be three presentations as well as food, beverages and networking opportunities. Join the community in supporting this great no cost for attendance opportunity.

The following is a list of the Postgres content that will be presented:

Partitioning in Postgres v10 by Corey Huinker
Building a scalable time-series database on PostgreSQL by Mike Freedman
Major Features: Postgres 10 by Bruce Momjian

You can find full details at the PGConf US Mini: NYC website.

These events wouldn't be possible without the great support from our sponsors:

Conference: Amazon Web Services
Premiere: OpenSCG, 2ndQuadrant, Compose
Facilities: Timescale
Media: @amplifypostgres

PGConf US Mini events are designed to bring an evening of high quality presentations to the local user groups. They are great opportunities to learn, network and socialize. If your community would like to join us in bringing a mini to your local community get in touch!

Joshua D. Drake August 24, 2017

Blog

3 presentations, 1 PGConf: NYC Mini!

PGConf Local: Austin Program Announced and Tickets Available!

PGConf Local: Austin is made possible by the wonderful team of volunteers including the Austin PostgreSQL User Group and our sponsors:

Presenter Professionalism at Postgres Conferences

Disclaimer: I am writing this opinion as a frequent presenter, not as the Co-Chair of the most electrifying Postgres Conference in the world.