PGConf.Russia 2025

A brief presentation on various extensions that can assist with optimization.

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.

Making changes to tables under production load is always a complex task. For example, when you need to change a column type (e.g., from int to bigint or from timestamp to timestamptz), or move a table to a different tablespace without losing any changes that occur during the data migration.

What if you have hundreds of such tables? With pg-transparent-alter-table, this is no longer a problem. These tasks can be solved with a single simple command:
$ pg_tat -h 0.0.0.0 -d mydb -c "alter table mytable alter column id bigint"

Key features include:

• You can specify any number of alter table commands at once.
• You can modify partitioned tables, supporting both the old inheritance-based partitioning and new declarative partitioning, including multi-level partitioning.
• You can interrupt the process at any stage and continue later without losing progress from previous stages.
• You can change your mind at any time, stop the execution, run "pg_tat --clean," and revert to the original state.
• Custom commands for changing column order.
• PostgreSQL version support: 11-17.

After more than 5 years of existence (previously called transparent-alter-type), the project has become a reliable tool actively used in production. I would like to share my experience and discuss its capabilities.

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.