Michael Christofides
Founder of pgMustard
Appears in 87 Episodes
Decoupled storage and compute
Nikolay and Michael discuss a listener question — about products that take Postgres and transform it to something that decouples compute from storage (RDS Aurora, GC A...
Self-managing
Nikolay and Michael discuss self-managing Postgres — both the practicalities of doing so, as well as some managed-service style tooling. Here are some links to some t...
Sharding
Nikolay and Michael discuss sharding Postgres — what it means, why and when it's needed, and the available options right now. Here are some links to some things they ...
Data types
Nikolay and Michael discuss data types in PostgreSQL — including system types, choosing between types, types provided by extensions, and more. Here are some links to ...
High availability
Nikolay and Michael discuss HA (high availability) — what it means, tools and techniques for maximising it, while going through some of the more common causes of downt...
Beginner tips
Nikolay and Michael discuss 10 beginner tips Nikolay recently shared — they go into a bit more detail on each, and even disagree a little on one or two! Here are some...
Connection poolers
Nikolay and Michael discuss Postgres connection poolers — when and why we need them, the king that is PgBouncer, and the many new pretenders to the throne. Here are li...
Anniversary mailbag
Nikolay and Michael celebrate the podcast's 1 year anniversary by going through several questions and suggestions received over the year. Here are the questions and so...
Memory
Nikolay and Michael discuss memory in PostgreSQL — how it works, important settings, and how to go about tuning them. Here are links to a few things we mentioned: Reso...
Extensions
Nikolay and Michael discuss Postgres extensions — what they are, how they affect your decisions around Postgres, and some things to keep in mind when using them. Here ...
Zero-downtime migrations
Nikolay and Michael discuss zero-downtime schema migrations — why they're a challenge, a variety of different cases, and some things you can do to achieve them. Here a...
Parallelism
Nikolay and Michael discuss parallelism — both parallel query execution and other parallel operations. Here are links to a few things we mentioned: Parallel query (doc...
Corruption
Nikolay and Michael discuss database corruption — various types, how they can come about, and what to do (and not do) if you come across it. Here are links to a few t...
ChatGPT x PostgreSQL
Nikolay and Michael discuss using ChatGPT for Postgres tasks — should you, if so what for, and some things to be mindful of! Here are links to a few things we mentione...
pg_stat_statements
Nikolay and Michael discuss pg_stat_statements — why everyone should use it, but also some downsides! Here are links to a few things we mentioned: pg_stat_statements (...
auto_explain
Nikolay and Michael discuss auto_explain — what it is, how it can help, and how to check it's overhead. Here are links to a few things we mentioned: auto_explain (docs...
Queues in Postgres
Nikolay and Michael discuss queues in Postgres — the pros and cons vs dedicated queuing tools, and some tips for scaling. A couple of apologies-in-advance: Near the en...
Read-only considerations
Nikolay and Michael discuss a listener request — special considerations for databases that are used in a read-only mode all day, and get an update at night with additi...
Partitioning
Nikolay and Michael discuss table partitioning — what it is, why and when it's helpful, and some considerations for your partition key. Here are links to a few things ...
psql vs GUIs
Nikolay and Michael discuss command line and graphical user interfaces for Postgres — what they are, some tips and tricks for learning, and what we each use and prefer...
Upgrades
Nikolay and Michael discuss major and minor version Postgres upgrades — what they are, how often they come out, and how regularly we should be upgrading. Here are link...
Wait events
Nikolay and Michael discuss wait events — what they are, why we have them, and how to use them to help diagnose performance issues. Here are links to a few things we m...
TOAST
Nikolay and Michael discuss TOAST (The Oversized-Attribute Storage Technique) — what it is, how it works, and some general things to be aware of. Here are links to a f...
JSON
Nikolay and Michael discuss JSON — our options for storing it in Postgres, whether or when we should, as well as a brief intro and some tips for JSON functions availab...
Real-time analytics
Nikolay and Michael discuss real-time analytics — what it means, what the options are, and some tips if you're trying to implement it within Postgres. Here are links t...
Benchmarking
Nikolay and Michael discuss benchmarking — reasons to do it, and some approaches, tools, and resources that can help. Here are links to a few things we mentioned: Towa...
Default configuration
Nikolay and Michael discuss the default config — some tools and principles you can use to customise it, as well as several parameters you probably always want to chang...
Infra cost optimization
Nikolay and Michael discuss some options for reducing costs — from big-effort-big-reward items, to some smaller things that could also be very impactful.
Auditing
Nikolay and Michael discuss auditing — why we might want it, what the options are, and even an idea for a future solution...
Copying a database
Nikolay and Michael discuss copying a database — what the various options are, how to copy large databases, and some pointers on performance.