PgConf.Russia 2020

Last year I made a talk about unexpected PostgreSQL bottlenecks, which could make sad surprise to user (or DBA). Feedback to my talk was very positive. Additionally I have new material after year. This is why I'm making a sequel including new unexpected situations when your database hangs. This time focus will be on multicore hardware platforms, but not only them.

If you care about Postgres performance, there are a number of hardware acceleration options to help with different use cases. Intel Optane DC persistent memory creates new tier in data hierarchy allowing developers to utilize performance of traditional memory combining with volume and persistency of block storage devices. Unlike traditional DRAM-only in-memory systems, where memory is small, expensive, and volatile, Intel Optane DC persistent memory makes it possible to run larger Postgres databases (terabytes) in memory for higher performance. FPGAs are integrated circuits that can be reprogrammed dynamically to accelerate a specific workload such as SQL execution and data compression. FPGA accelerators extend Postgres with hundreds of SQL reader and writer processes that work in parallel on the FPGA. It’s similar to adding hundreds new cores to boost parallel processing on your server.

In this tutorial, we will solve several programming problems using JSON functionality that extends SQL capabilities and virtually turns a relational database into an almost ready-to-use application server. :)
We will learn how to use aggregates, both standard and custom, as well as review possible benefits of JSON recursive structure.

Any DBA needs some kind of tool for historical workload analyse. Assume once at morning your monitoring team will report of sudden performance degradation at 2-3 a.m., and now you need to investigate this issue. What activities was most resource consuming within that hour? There are several tools for solving this problem, and I'll talk about one very easy and convenient tool - pg_profile. It need only a postgres database and a cron-like tool to run, and it will generate a workload profile report for your database as you need it. Ths report will be a good start point for further investigation.