PGConf.Russia 2025

In any business-critical system, there comes a need to modify table structures — whether it's adding new columns with expressions based on other columns or converting a non-partitioned table into a partitioned one.

Using standard PostgreSQL tools for large table reorganization often results in significant downtime, as tables become unavailable for writes — and sometimes even for reads — during the process.

In this talk, I’ll introduce dbms_redefinition, a custom-built extension that brings functionality similar to Oracle’s DBMS_REDEFINITION package to PostgreSQL. This solution minimizes downtime to near zero when applying schema changes in production. 

Unlike pg_repack, which does not support structural modifications, dbms_redefinition is useful for all PostgreSQL users, even beyond Oracle migrations.

I’ll share a real-world use case, discuss future development plans, and explore new features in the pipeline.

Although we often don't like to talk about it, database administration carries with it a large amount of stress. This is particularly true when we have to take on late night support duties. In this talk you will learn: 1. The basics of the physiology of stress. This is not a physiology lecture, but as engineers we need enough to build a mental model. 2. What kinds of mistakes we make when under stress. 3. How to measure stress in your own life and recognize it in others. 4. What tools are helpful to manage short- and long-term stressors. Managing short-term stress is important in avoiding becoming overwhelmed when problems occur, but managing longer-term stressors is just as important in avoiding problems in the first place.

Diagnostic Methods: Analyzing the Issue of Long CREATE DATABASE Execution

This talk covers two cases of long CREATE DATABASE execution in PostgreSQL 11, which, in a Corosync/Pacemaker cluster configuration, caused node failover due to a monitoring timeout from the clustering software. The first case is related to a large shared buffers size, while the second involves the use of the WITH OWNER option during database creation and a large pg_shdepend system table (a feature of using the jBPM software).

This talk will likely be of interest to network providers who can enhance their cool features by adding something to the syntax to simplify administration, as well as anyone interested in machine learning. We will explore the SQL parsing mechanism, what, where, and how to modify it in order to introduce new syntax constructs. Additionally, I will demonstrate the capabilities of machine learning on tabular data, all within the database, using the new syntax.