⇽ Bruce Momjian ⇽

Postgres Internals Presentations


PostgreSQL Internals Through Pictures

This talk is designed for advanced PostgreSQL users who want to know more about how the database internally processes a query.  It is also ideal for people wanting to modify the PostgreSQL server source code.  It covers PostgreSQL network communication, query parsing, optimizer plan selection, multiversion concurrency control (MVCC), and internal storage characteristics.  It does not require any programming knowledge.
Duration: 3 hours, 4 hours with questions

MVCC Unmasked

Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC) allows Postgres to offer high concurrency even during significant database read/write activity. MVCC specifically offers behavior where "readers never block writers, and writers never block readers". This talk explains how MVCC is implemented in Postgres and highlights optimizations which minimize the downsides of MVCC. This talk is for advanced users.
Duration: 45 minutes, 60 minutes with questions

Inside PostgreSQL Shared Memory

This talk is for people who want to understand how PostgreSQL shares information among processes using shared memory. The talk covers the internal data page format, usage of the shared buffers, locking methods, and various other shared memory data structures.
Duration: 30 minutes, 45 minutes with questions

Unlocking the Postgres Lock Manager

Locking is critical for providing high concurrency for any database — you cannot fully utilize your hardware if locking is throttling its use. This talk explores all aspects of locking in Postgres by showing queries and their locks; covered lock types include row, table, shared, exclusive, and advisory lock types. The high concurrency provided by Multiversion Concurrency Control (MVCC) is also covered.
Duration: 45 minutes, 60 minutes with questions