Postgres FM

Nikolay Samokhvalov and Michael Christofides
  • 4.7 (21)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

A weekly podcast about all things PostgreSQL

  1. 2D AGO

    Postgres 18

    Nik and Michael discuss the newly released Postgres 18 — the bigger things it includes, some of their personal highlights, and some thoughts towards the future. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Postgres 18 announcement https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-18-released-3142Postgres 18 release notes https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/release-18.htmlSkip scan episode with Peter Geoghegan https://postgres.fm/episodes/skip-scanEasier Postgres fine-tuning with online_advisor https://neon.com/blog/easier-postgres-fine-tuning-with-online_advisorpganalyze Index Advisor https://pganalyze.com/index-advisorBUFFERS by default https://postgres.fm/episodes/buffers-by-defaultBuffers II (the sequel) https://postgres.fm/episodes/buffers-ii-the-sequelReturn of the BUFFERS https://postgres.fm/episodes/return-of-the-buffersUUID https://postgres.fm/episodes/uuidPartitioning by ULID https://postgres.fm/episodes/partitioning-by-uliduuidv7 and uuid_extract_timestamp functions https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/functions-uuid.htmlAdd --no-policies option to pg_dump, pg_dumpall, and pg_restore https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commitdiff;h=cd3c45125Add ONLY support for VACUUM and ANALYZE https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commitdiff;h=62ddf7ee9Make "vacuumdb --analyze-only" process partitioned tables (committed recently for Postgres 19) https://commitfest.postgresql.org/patch/5871/NOT VALID constraints https://postgres.fm/episodes/not-valid-constraintsThe year of the Lock Manager’s Revenge (post by Jeremy Schneider) https://ardentperf.com/2024/03/03/postgres-indexes-partitioning-and-lwlocklockmanager-scalabilityIncrease the number of fast-path lock slots https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commitdiff;h=c4d5cb71d"enable" parameters will work differently in Postgres 18 https://www.pgmustard.com/blog/enable-parameters-work-differently-in-postgres-18logerrors https://github.com/munakoiso/logerrors ~~~ What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc! ~~~ Postgres FM is produced by: Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai With credit to: Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork

    56 min

  2. SEP 19

    Gadget's use of Postgres

    Nik and Michael are joined by Harry Brundage from Gadget to talk about their recent zero-downtime major version upgrade, how they use Postgres more generally, their dream database, and some challenges of providing Postgres as an abstracted service at scale. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Harry Brundage https://postgres.fm/people/harry-brundageGadget https://gadget.devZero downtime Postgres upgrades using logical replication (blog post) https://gadget.dev/blog/zero-downtime-postgres-upgrades-using-logical-replicationHOT updates https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/storage-hot.htmlPgDog https://pgdog.devMultigres https://multigres.comNeki https://www.neki.devRunning 10 Million PostgreSQL Indexes In Production (Heap blog post) https://www.heap.io/blog/running-10-million-postgresql-indexes-in-productionpgwatch2 (Postgres.ai Edition) https://gitlab.com/postgres-ai/pgwatch2Advanced query insights on AlloyDB https://cloud.google.com/alloydb/docs/advanced-query-insights-overviewOrioleDB https://www.orioledb.comNot discussed but relevant: Gadget have also now published a blog post about their sharding! https://gadget.dev/blog/sharding-our-core-postgres-database-without-any-downtime ~~~ What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc! ~~~ Postgres FM is produced by: Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai With credit to: Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork

    53 min

  3. SEP 12

    turbopuffer

    Nik and Michael are joined by Simon Eskildsen from turbopuffer — among other things, they discuss ANN index types, tradeoffs that can make sense for search workloads, and when it can make sense to move search out of Postgres. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Simon Eskildsen https://postgres.fm/people/simon-eskildsenturbopuffer https://turbopuffer.comUse ULID Idempotency Keys (tip 6 in this blog post from Shopify) https://shopify.engineering/building-resilient-payment-systemsPostgreSQL 18 Release Candidate 1 https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-18-rc-1-released-3130Understanding DiskANN (blog post by Junaid Ahmed) https://www.tigerdata.com/blog/understanding-diskannSPFresh: Incremental In-Place Update for Billion-Scale Vector Search (paper) https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.14452Amazon S3 adds new functionality for conditional writes https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/11/amazon-s3-functionality-conditional-writesAmazon S3 Vectors https://aws.amazon.com/s3/features/vectors ~~~ What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc! ~~~ Postgres FM is produced by: Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai With credit to: Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork

    50 min

  4. SEP 5

    When not to use Postgres

    Nik and Michael discuss when not to use Postgres — specifically use cases where it still makes sense to store data in another system. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Just use Postgres (blog post by Ethan McCue) https://mccue.dev/pages/8-16-24-just-use-postgresJust Use Postgres for Everything (blog post by Stephan Schmidt) https://www.amazingcto.com/postgres-for-everythingReal-time analytics episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/real-time-analyticsCrunchy Data Joins Snowflake https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/crunchy-data-joins-snowflakeTwo sizes fit most: PostgreSQL and Clickhouse (blog post by Sid Sijbrandij) https://about.gitlab.com/blog/two-sizes-fit-most-postgresql-and-clickhousepg_duckdb episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/pg_duckdbCloudberry https://github.com/apache/cloudberryTime-series considerations episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/time-series-considerationsQueues in Postgres episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/queues-in-postgresLarge Objects https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/largeobjects.html PGlite https://pglite.devParadeDB https://www.paradedb.comZomboDB https://github.com/zombodb/zombodbturbopuffer https://turbopuffer.comHNSW vs. DiskANN (blog post by Haziqa Sajid) https://www.tigerdata.com/learn/hnsw-vs-diskannSPANN: Highly-efficient Billion-scale Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search (paper) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/SPANN_finalversion1.pdfAmazon S3 Vectors https://aws.amazon.com/s3/features/vectorsIterative Index Scans added to pgvector in 0.8.0 https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector/issues/678S3 FDW from Supabase https://github.com/supabase/wrappers/tree/main/wrappers/src/fdw/s3_fdw ~~~ What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc! ~~~ Postgres FM is produced by: Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai With credit to: Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork

    46 min

  5. AUG 29

    Disks

    Nik and Michael discuss disks in relation to Postgres — why they matter, how saturation can happen, some modern nuances, and how to prepare to avoid issues. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Nik’s tweet demonstrating a NOTIFY hot spot https://x.com/samokhvalov/status/1959468091035009245Postgres LISTEN/NOTIFY does not scale (blog post by Recall ai) https://www.recall.ai/blog/postgres-listen-notify-does-not-scaletrack_io_timing https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-statistics.html#GUC-TRACK-IO-TIMINGpg_test_timing https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/pgtesttiming.html PlanetScale for Postgres https://planetscale.com/blog/planetscale-for-postgresOut of disk episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/out-of-disk100TB episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/to-100tb-and-beyond Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832Fio https://github.com/axboe/fio ~~~ What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc! ~~~ Postgres FM is produced by: Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai With credit to: Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork

    46 min

  6. AUG 22

    Multi-column indexes

    Nik and Michael discuss multi-column indexes in Postgres — what they are, how to think about them, and some guidance around using them effectively. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Multicolumn Indexes (docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/indexes-multicolumn.htmlOur episode on Index-only scans https://postgres.fm/episodes/index-only-scansCombining Multiple Indexes (docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/indexes-bitmap-scans.htmlEnable BUFFERS with EXPLAIN ANALYZE by default https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=c2a4078ebad71999dd451ae7d4358be3c9290b07“PostgreSQL includes an implementation of the standard btree […] The only limitation is that an index entry cannot exceed approximately one-third of a page” https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/btree.htmlOur episode on HOT updates https://postgres.fm/episodes/hot-updatesOur episode on LIMIT vs Performance https://postgres.fm/episodes/limit-vs-performance ~~~ What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc! ~~~ Postgres FM is produced by: Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai With credit to: Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork

    41 min

  7. AUG 15

    Self-driving Postgres

    Nikolay and Michael discuss self-driving Postgres — what it could mean, using self-driving cars as a reference, and ideas for things to build and optimize for in this area. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Nikolay’s blog post on Self-driving Postgres https://postgres.ai/blog/20250725-self-driving-postgresSAE J3016 levels of driving automation https://www.sae.org/news/2019/01/sae-updates-j3016-automated-driving-graphicOracle Autonomous Database https://www.oracle.com/uk/autonomous-database/Self-Driving Database Management Systems (2017 paper) https://db.cs.cmu.edu/papers/2017/p42-pavlo-cidr17.pdfPGTune https://pgtune.leopard.in.ua/pg_index_pilot https://gitlab.com/postgres-ai/pg_index_pilot/[Vibe] Hacking Postgres with Andrey, Kirk, Nik – index bloat, btree page merge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1PEdDcvZTw ~~~ What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc! ~~~ Postgres FM is produced by: Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai With credit to: Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork

    59 min

  8. AUG 8

    caSe-inSENsiTive

    Nikolay and Michael discuss case-insensitive data — when we want to treat columns as case-insensitive, and the pros and cons of using citext, functions like lower(), or a custom collation. Here are some links to things they mentioned: citext https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/citext.htmlOur episode on over-indexing https://postgres.fm/episodes/over-indexingNondeterministic collations https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/collation.html#COLLATION-NONDETERMINISTICHow to migrate from Django’s PostgreSQL CI Fields to use a case-insensitive collation (blog post by Adam Johnson) https://adamj.eu/tech/2023/02/23/migrate-django-postgresql-ci-fields-case-insensitive-collationThe collation versioning problem with ICU 73 (blog post by Daniel Vérité) https://postgresql.verite.pro/blog/2023/10/20/icu-73-versioning.htmlamcheck https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/amcheck.html ~~~ What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc! ~~~ Postgres FM is produced by: Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai With credit to: Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork

    26 min
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4.7
out of 5
21 Ratings

About

A weekly podcast about all things PostgreSQL

Information

  • Creator
    Nikolay Samokhvalov and Michael Christofides
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2025
  • Episodes
    160
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Nikolay Samokhvalov and Michael Christofides

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