PODCAST

Postgres FM

Nikolay Samokhvalov and Michael Christofides

A weekly podcast about all things PostgreSQL

technology tech news

All Episodes

40:48

RLS vs performance

Postgres FM ·

2024/12/20

Nikolay and Michael discuss Row Level Security in Postgres, focussing on the performance side effects and some tips to avoid (or minimize) them. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Row Security Policies (docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/ddl-rowsecurity.html7+ million Postgres tables (recent talk by Kailash Nadh) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhi5Q_wL9i0Row Level Security guide (Supabase docs)

50:31

jOOQ

Postgres FM ·

2024/12/13

Michael and Nikolay are joined by Lukas Eder, the creator of jOOQ, to discuss what it is, some nice developer experience features it has, and some fun things he's come across from a Postgres perspective. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Lukas Eder https://postgres.fm/people/lukas-ederjOOQ https://www.jooq.org/ DSL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_language SQL Dialects https://www.jooq.org/javadoc/latest/org.jooq/org/jooq/SQLDialect.htmlMERGE

41:06

Column Tetris

Postgres FM ·

2024/12/06

Nikolay and Michael discuss "Column Tetris" — what it is, why it matters, how to order columns for new tables, and how to re-organise existing ones. Here are some links to things they mentioned:“Column Tetris” by Erwin Brandstetter on Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2966524/calculating-and-saving-space-in-postgresql/7431468#7431468Data Types https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/datatype.htmlOrioleDB beta7 benchmarks

37:55

pg_stat_statements track_planning

Postgres FM ·

2024/11/29

Nikolay and Michael discuss the track_planning parameter of pg_stat_statements — what it is, how it affects performance, and when or whether you should switch it on. Here are some links to things they mentioned:pg_stat_statements.track_planning https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/pgstatstatements.html#id-1.11.7.40.9.2.4.1.3Our episode about pg_stat_statements https://postgres.fm/episodes/pg_stat_statementsPostgreSQL 13.0 release notes

48:44

Is pg_dump a backup tool?

Postgres FM ·

2024/11/22

Michael and Nikolay are joined by Gülçin Yıldırım Jelínek and Robert Haas to discuss both the technical question of whether or not pg_dump is a backup tool, as well as the tone and intent behind the statement "pg_dump is not a backup tool". Here are some links to things they mentioned:Gülçin Yıldırım Jelínek https://postgres.fm/people/gulcin-yildirim-jelinekRobert Haas https://postgres.fm/people/robert-haasWhy you should upgrade PostgreSQL today (blog post by Gülçin)

44:07

Append-only tables

Postgres FM ·

2024/11/15

Nikolay and Michael discuss append-only tables in Postgres — what they are, some unique challenges they bring, and some options for compressing / removing / offloading the data eventually. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Append-only https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Append-onlyOur episode on BRIN indexes https://postgres.fm/episodes/brin-indexesTips to Improve Insert Performance https://www.timescale.com/blog/13-tips-to-improve-postgresql-insert-performance/ Our episode on WAL and

35:08

Denormalization

Postgres FM ·

2024/11/08

Nikolay and Michael discuss denormalization in Postgres — when and why to denormalize things, and a couple of specific cases Nikolay came across recently. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Denormalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DenormalizationOur episode on materialized views https://postgres.fm/episodes/materialized-viewsOur episode on data model trade-offs https://postgres.fm/episodes/data-model-trade-offsOur episode with Markus Winand

38:09

Postgres online communities

Postgres FM ·

2024/11/01

Nikolay and Michael discuss online Postgres communities — the ones they prefer, the types of conversations in each, and some other places to ask questions or follow news. Here are some links to things they mentioned:https://www.postgresql.org/communityMailing lists https://www.postgresql.org/listIRC https://www.postgresql.org/community/ircSlack https://pgtreats.info/slack-inviteStack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/postgresDBA Stack Exchange

52:37

Advanced psql

Postgres FM ·

2024/10/25

Nikolay and Michael discuss some cool things you can do with psql, the official CLI that ships with Postgres. Here are some links to things they mentioned:psql docs https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-psql.html Our episode on psql vs GUIs https://postgres.fm/episodes/psql-vs-guispostgres_dba https://github.com/NikolayS/postgres_dbaOur episode on massive deletes https://postgres.fm/episodes/massive-deletesPostgres hacking session on \watch with limited number of loops

40:19

Postgres Gotchas

Postgres FM ·

2024/10/18

Nikolay and Michael discuss some Postgres Gotchas, things you might expect to work one way in fact working another way. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Out episode on NULLs https://postgres.fm/episodes/nulls-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-and-the-unknownPostgres Gotchas (list by Ian Barwick) https://sql-info.de/postgresql/postgres-gotchas.htmlOur episode on slow count https://postgres.fm/episodes/slow-countDiscussion on X about major version upgrades and statistics

48:47

Advanced EXPLAIN

Postgres FM ·

2024/10/11

Nikolay and Michael discuss some more advanced topics around EXPLAIN, including some tips for complex query plans, some recent improvements, and an idea or two that might make it even better. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Michael’s solo episode on EXPLAIN basics https://postgres.fm/episodes/explainOur episode on auto_explain https://postgres.fm/episodes/auto_explainWhich cloud providers support auto_explain? (Blog post by Michael)

45:33

Patroni

Postgres FM ·

2024/10/04

Michael and Nikolay are joined by Alexander Kukushkin, PostgreSQL contributor and maintainer of Patroni, to discuss all things Patroni — what it is, how it works, recent improvements, and more.Here are some links to things they mentioned:Alexander Kukushkin https://postgres.fm/people/alexander-kukushkinPatroni https://github.com/patroni/patroniSpilo https://github.com/zalando/spilo Zalando Postgres Operator https://github.com/zalando/postgres-operatorCrunchy Data Postgres Operator

42:03

Postgres 17

Postgres FM ·

2024/09/27

Nikolay and Michael discuss the fresh new Postgres 17 release! They cover several performance improvements, favourite new features, and some considerations for upgrading. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Postgres 17 release notes https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.htmltransaction_timeout episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/transaction_timeoutVACUUM improvements discussed towards end of episode with Melanie Plageman

42:17

Planning time

Postgres FM ·

2024/09/20

Nikolay and Michael discuss planning time in Postgres — what it is, how to spot issues, its relationship to things like partitioning, and some tips for avoiding issues. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Query Planning (docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-query.htmlAre there limits to partition counts? (Blog post by depesz) https://www.depesz.com/2021/01/17/are-there-limits-to-partition-countsNikolays recent experiment

43:25

Slow count

Postgres FM ·

2024/09/13

Nikolay and Michael discuss why counting can be slow in Postgres, and what the options are for counting things quickly at scale. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Aggregate functions (docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/functions-aggregate.htmlPostgREST https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest Get rid of count by default in PostgREST https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest/issues/273 Faster PostgreSQL Counting (by Joe Nelson on the Citus blog)

57:49

Skip scan

Postgres FM ·

2024/09/06

Michael and Nikolay are joined by Peter Geoghegan, major contributor and committer to Postgres, to discuss adding skip scan support to PostgreSQL over versions 17 and 18. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Peter Geoghegan https://postgres.fm/people/peter-geogheganPeter’s previous (excellent) interview on Postgres TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAPawr1DxhMEfficient Search of Multidimensional B-Trees (1995 paper by Harry Leslie, Rohit Jain, Dave Birdsall, and Hedieh Yaghmai)

45:27

Postgres Emergency Room

Postgres FM ·

2024/08/30

Nikolay and Michael discuss PostgreSQL emergencies — both the psychological side of incident management, and some technical aspects too. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Site Reliability Engineering resources from Google https://sre.googleGitLab Handbook SRE https://handbook.gitlab.com/job-families/engineering/infrastructure/site-reliability-engineerKeeping Customers Streaming — The Centralized Site Reliability Practice at Netflix

50:19

Get or Create

Postgres FM ·

2024/08/23

Michael and Nikolay are joined by Haki Benita, a technical lead and database enthusiast who writes an excellent blog and gives popular talks and training sessions too, to discuss the surprisingly complex topic of trying to implement “get or create” in PostgreSQL — handling issues around idempotency, concurrency, and bloat. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Haki Benita https://hakibenita.com How to Get or Create in PostgreSQL (blog post by Haki)

56:32

Getting started with benchmarking

Postgres FM ·

2024/08/16

Michael and Nikolay are joined by Melanie Plageman, database internals engineer at Microsoft and major contributor and committer to PostgreSQL, to discuss getting started with benchmarking — how it differs for users and developers of Postgres, how and when it comes up during development, some tools and lessons, as well as what she's working on at the moment. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Melanie Plageman https://postgres.fm/people/melanie-plagemanMeanie’s Introduction to

39:15

Index-Only Scans

Postgres FM ·

2024/08/09

Nikolay and Michael discuss Index-Only Scans in Postgres — what they are, how they help, some things to look out for, and some advice. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Index-Only Scans and Covering Indexes (docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/indexes-index-only-scans.htmlDiscussion on Twitter about JIT and Parallel Query defaults https://x.com/jer_s/status/1819749688184373742Postgres Wiki on Index-Only Scans https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Index-only_scansHeap Fetches

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Postgres FM

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