PGConf.Russia 2023

Every DBA has in one way or another experienced the situation when PostgreSQL tables and indexes grow significantly in size. While looking for the reason for such behavior, we often conclude that database objects have "bloated". In this talk, we'll discuss the reasons behind bloating, create a testing environment to define the best method to reduce bloating. We'll also compare several anti-bloating utilities and get familiar with one more tool that helps us to efficiently struggle against bloating. We expect this presentation to become helpful for PostgreSQL DBAs of any experience level.

This report is primarily intended for companies, specifically their IT departments, that are running Russian systems 1C 8.x and have the ability to work with both MSSQL Server and PostgreSQL. We live in a unique time when having a heterogeneous IT system (a system with a distributed architecture where each database instance runs under different databases and/or has a different data structure) is justified both economically and in terms of potential risks. On the one hand, we store data and use databases with predictable behavior and open source code, regardless of the political situation. On the other hand, with this approach, we take advantage of all the benefits (primarily performance) of a powerful database supported by the largest vendor, albeit a hostile state to us. Now is the time to assess risks with the necessary level of paranoia. After all, data can be corrupted not only at the level of storage logic, but also by the method of additional "hidden" calls of Delete/Update constructs at the engine level of the database. Therefore, it is now relevant not only to monitor the performance of the IT system, but also to audit data and their timely integrity. It is necessary to implement data verification procedures, it is necessary to implement procedures for closing periods, procedures for fault-tolerant storage. And accordingly, to provide for various threat models in data recovery procedures. The report presents options for countering such threats and scenarios for the most seamless transition of large databases to PostgreSQL, since it is precisely for such databases that the problem of translating to a new DBMS is particularly acute.

A popular lecture with pictures illustrating the most powerful phenomena in the Universe that put space and time in an uncomfortable position and force them to reveal the secrets of the Universe to those who have an inquisitive mind and Postgres! The story of Mr. Lipunov, professor at Moscow State University, author of world-famous popular and scientific books, theorist, experimenter and creator of a network of astronomical robots.

In this talk I’ll show some new abilities in postgres observability. There will be Graphana visualization of pg_profile/pgpro_pwr data, manual highlighting of interesting objects in pg_profile/pgpro_pwr reports, further development of extended vacuum statistics in PostgresPro releases and a new session and query tracing technique in pgpro_stats extension