Category: Uncategorized
PostgreSQL: What is a checkpoint?
Checkpoints are a core concept in PostgreSQL. However, many people don’t know what they actually are, nor do they understand how to tune checkpoints to reach maximum efficiency. This post will explain both checkpoints and checkpoint tuning, and will hopefully shed some light on these vital database internals. How PostgreSQL writes data Before we talk […]
Monitoring replication: pg_stat_replication
PostgreSQL replication (synchronous and asynchronous replication) is one of the most widespread features in the database community. Nowadays, people are building high-availability clusters or use replication to create read-only replicas to spread out the workload. What is important to note here is that if you are using replication, you must make sure that your clusters […]
Golden Proportions in PostgreSQL
As CYBERTEC keeps expanding, we need a lot more office space than we previously did. Right now, we have a solution in the works: a new office building. We wanted something beautiful, so we started to dig into mathematical proportions to achieve a reasonable level of beauty. We hoped to make the building not just […]
PostgreSQL: int4 vs. float4 vs. numeric
Data types are an important topic in any relational database. PostgreSQL offers many different types, but not all of them are created equal. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, different column types might be necessary. This post will focus on three important ones: the integer, float and numeric types. Recently, we have seen […]
The shibboleth of PostgreSQL
© Laurenz Albe 2020 After all the technical articles I have written, I thought it would be nice to write about PostgreSQL sociology for a change. Language and community A community like PostgreSQL has no clearly defined borders. There is no membership certificate; you belong to it if you feel that you belong. That said, […]
Is UPDATE the same as DELETE + INSERT in PostgreSQL?
© Laurenz Albe 2020 Introduction We know that PostgreSQL does not update a table row in place. Rather, it writes a new version of the row (the PostgreSQL term for a row version is “tuple”) and leaves the old row version in place to serve concurrent read requests. VACUUM later removes these “dead tuples”. If […]
Dealing with streaming replication conflicts in PostgreSQL
© Laurenz Albe 2020 Streaming replication in PostgreSQL is a well-established master-slave replication technique. It is simple to set up, stable and performs well. So many people are surprised when they learn about replication conflicts — after all, the standby server is read-only. This article describes replication conflicts and tells you how to deal with […]
Simple partitioning live data with Postgres
Partitioning data is a well known way to optimize big tables into smaller ones using a given attribute. And while creating a partitioned table structure itself is not complicated, the migration of a table on live system can be tricky. Our solution offers a simple way to solve this problem. The usual way can be summarized […]
PostgreSQL: Sophisticating temporary tables
Temporary tables have been around forever and are widely used by application developers. However, there is more to temporary tables than meets the eye. PostgreSQL allows you to configure the lifespan of a temporary table in a nice way and helps to avoid some common pitfalls. CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE … By default, a temporary table […]
pg_squeeze: Optimizing PostgreSQL storage
Is your database growing at a rapid rate? Does your database system slow down all the time? And maybe you have trouble understanding why this happens? Maybe it is time to take a look at pg_squeeze and fix your database once and for all. pg_squeeze has been designed to shrink your database tables without downtime. […]
Debugging PL/pgSQL: GET STACKED DIAGNOSTICS
PL/pgSQL is the preferred way to write stored procedures in PostgreSQL. Of course there are more languages to write code available but most people still use PL/pgSQL to get the job done. However, debugging PL/pgSQL code can be a bit tricky. Tools are around but it is still not a fun experience. One thing to […]
HOT updates in PostgreSQL for better performance
© Laurenz Albe 2020 HOT updates are not a new feature. They were introduced by commit 282d2a03dd in 2007 and first appeared in PostgreSQL 8.3. But since HOT is not covered by the PostgreSQL documentation (although there is a README.HOT in the source tree), it is not as widely known as it should be: Hence […]