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Postgres Technical Performance Presentations


PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

Duration: 3 hours, 4 hours with questions
 This talk is designed for advanced PostgreSQL users who want to know how to maximize PostgreSQL performance.  It covers every aspect of performance: server settings, caching, sizing operating system resources, optimizer processing, problem queries, storage efficiency, and some hardware selection details.  It includes how to size shared memory, how to understand the output of the optimizer, when to restructure queries, and how to configure storage for optimal performance.

Explaining the Postgres Query Optimizer

Duration: 45 minutes, 60 minutes with questions
 The optimizer is the "brain" of the database, interpreting SQL queries and determining the fastest method of execution. This talk uses the explain command to show how the optimizer interprets queries and determines optimal execution. The talk will assist developers and administrators in understanding how Postgres optimally executes their queries and what steps they can take to understand and perhaps improve its behavior.

Database Hardware Selection Guidelines

Duration: 30 minutes, 45 minutes with questions
 Database servers have hardware requirements different from other infrastructure software, specifically unique demands on I/O and memory. This presentation covers these differences and various I/O options and their benefits. Topics include solid-state drives (SSD), battery-backed RAID, controllers, and caching.

Postgres Scaling Opportunities

Duration: 45 minutes, 1 hour with questions
 Database scaling is the ability to increase database throughput by utilizing additional resources such as I/O, memory, cpu, or additional computers. However, the high concurrency and write requirements of database servers make scaling a challenge. Sometimes scaling is only possible with multiple sessions, while other options require data model adjustments or server configuration changes. This talk explores the multi-session, single-session, and multi-host scaling options and the workloads where these options are appropriate.

The Future of Postgres Sharding

Duration: 30 minutes, 45 minutes with questions
 Database sharding involves spreading database contents across multiple servers, with each server holding only part of the database. While it is possible to vertically scale Postgres, and to scale read-only workloads across multiple servers, only sharding allows multi-server read-write scaling. This presentation will cover the advantages of sharding and future Postgres sharding implementation requirements, including foreign data wrapper enhancements, parallelism, and global snapshot and transaction control. This is a followup to my Postgres Scaling Opportunities presentation.