PGConf.Russia 2025

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).

Many Russian companies are striving to establish themselves in the relational database market by developing their own commercial solutions, often based on forks of vanilla PostgreSQL. But beyond the database itself, customers also need a graphical management tool — Enterprise Manager. Since forking it is extremely challenging, vendors often have to build their own from scratch while considering competitive solutions.

This talk will explore Enterprise Managers from various Russian database vendors, comparing their key features — functionality, usability, and design — to identify which one stands out as the most effective.

Covering all the key changes in PostgreSQL 18 during this talk would be quite a challenge — especially since the code freeze is set to happen just a week after the presentation. However, I’ll focus on what has already been finalized.

There are plenty of exciting updates in performance, monitoring, vacuuming (of course!), and beyond. As always, this talk is based on a series of articles reviewing the commit fests for PostgreSQL 18, published on Postgres Professional’s corporate blog on Habr.

For over a year, Postgres Pro has provided extended vacuum statistics, reflecting its operation on individual relations.

We've started receiving observations from production databases of clients that include these statistics. It has been quite successful, and in 2024, we began actively promoting vacuum statistics in PostgreSQL. In this talk, we will review what these statistics can tell us about the complex life of vacuum, using real-world data from live systems.