PGConf.Russia 2022

Implementation of ETL is one of the first tasks that any PostgreSQL user needs to solve. There is a misconception that low-code tools implementing ETL procedures reduce requirements for the user, but due to sacrificing performance and/or flexibility to this goal. The presentation will demonstrate that it is possible to design ETL procedures quickly and easily without losing productivity. We will explain how high speed is ensured, how PostgreSQL features are used and how the combination of PostgreSQL and low-code platforms allows you to get rid of one of the most frequent user pains.

The plv8 extension is very underestimated, though it can help simplify development for a variety of tasks. It's been a year since we started using this extension in our projects. The main reason for its low popularity is the complexity of building. Moreover, building plv8 requires a lot of traffic and disc space for temporary files. That's why we decided to build plv8 and provide ready-made binaries freely to anyone interested, not just as an offering for our customers. First, we made the binaries available on GitHub. Then we created a Docker image for Postgres with pre-installed plv8 based on Debian. It looked too heavy to us, and we decided to check Alpine, however, building it for Alpine appeared to be more complicated than we expected. I'll explain what difficulties we faced and how we managed to overcome them. I will also list the tasks that can be solved with plv8 and provide advice on how to make the development process more convenient. I will also share the links to our Docker images for the latest Postgres 13 and Postgres 14 releases, that are compact and can be used for any types of tasks.

My talk covers PostgreSQL infrastructure in Ozon: - how do we tune virtual machines (KVM); - which version control system we have created; - which drivers we make and how it relates to fault tolerance and load balancing; - how do we make "hot" upgrades for the parameters of our virtual machines.