We continue the series of articles about new patches coming to PostgreSQL 18, this one covering the news of the November CommitFest.

If you missed the previous reviews, you can check them out here: 2024-07, 2024-09.

Storing all your data in one place might seem convenient, but it’s often impractical. High costs, database scalability limits, and complex administration create major hurdles. That’s why smart businesses rely on Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) — a structured approach that automates data management based on policies and best practices.

With Postgres Pro Enterprise 17, ILM is now easier than ever, thanks to the pgpro_ilm extension. This tool enables seamless data tiering, much like Oracle's ILM functionality. Let’s dive into the challenges of managing large databases, how ILM solves them, and how you can implement it in Postgres Pro Enterprise 17.

While pg_probackup 3 is still in the works and not yet available to the public, let’s dive into what’s new under the hood. There’s a lot to unpack — from a completely reimagined application architecture to long-awaited features and seamless integration with other tools. 

For many years, the PostgreSQL community was skeptical about using this database management system (DBMS) for high-transaction environments. While PostgreSQL worked well for lab tests, mid-tier web applications, and smaller backend systems, it was believed that for heavy transactional loads, you’d need an expensive DBMS designed specifically for such purposes. As a result, PostgreSQL wasn’t particularly developed in that direction, leaving a range of issues unanswered.

However, the reality has turned out differently. More and more of our clients are encountering problems that stem from this mindset. For example, in the global PostgreSQL community, it’s considered that 64 cores is the maximum size of a server where PostgreSQL can run effectively. But we’re now seeing that this is becoming a minimum typical configuration. One particular bottleneck that has emerged is the transaction counter, and this is a far more interesting issue. So, let’s dive into what the problem is, how we solved it, and what the international community thinks about it.

Postgres Pro Enterprise 17 introduces major improvements in performance and scalability. The key feature of this new release is the proxima extension, which combines connection pooling, proxying, and load balancing within the database core. Developers also gain improved tools for managing message queues, optimizing queries, enhancing security, and utilizing smart data storage. Want to know how these and other features can impact your applications and simplify database administration?

This article provides a brief overview of the release, accompanied by the links to more detailed information.

Statistically, September CommitFests feature the fewest commits. Apparently, the version 18 CommitFest is an outlier. There are many accepted patches and many interesting new features to talk about.

If you missed the July CommitFest, get up to speed here: 2024-07.

This article is the first in the series about the upcoming PostgreSQL 18 release. Let us take a look at the features introduced in the July CommitFest.

Planner: Hash Right Semi Join support
Planner: materializing an internal row set for parallel nested loop join
Planner support functions for generate_series
EXPLAIN (analyze): statistics for Parallel Bitmap Heap Scan node workers
Functions min and max for composite types
Parameter names for regexp* functions
Debug mode in pgbench
pg_get_backend_memory_contexts: column path instead of parent, new column type
Function pg_get_acl
pg_upgrade: pg_dump optimization
Predefined role pg_signal_autovacuum_worker

Since the PostgreSQL 17 RC1 came out, we are on a home run towards the official PostgreSQL release, scheduled for September 26, 2024.

Let's take a look at the patches that came in during the March CommitFest.

Spring is in full swing as we bring you the hottest winter news of the January Commitfest. Let's get to the good stuff right away!

Previous articles about PostgreSQL 17: 2023-07, 2023-09, 2023-11.

The November commitfest is ripe with new interesting features! Without further ado, let's proceed with the review.

If you missed our July and September commitfest reviews, you can check them out here: 2023-07, 2023-09.

ON LOGIN trigger
Event triggers for REINDEX
ALTER OPERATOR: commutator, negator, hashes, merges
pg_dump --filter=dump.txt
psql: displaying default privileges
pg_stat_statements: track statement entry timestamps and reset min/max statistics
pg_stat_checkpointer: checkpointer process statistics
pg_stats: statistics for range type columns
Planner: exclusion of unnecessary table self-joins
Planner: materialized CTE statistics
Planner: accessing a table with multiple clauses
Index range scan optimization
dblink, postgres_fdw: detailed wait events
Logical replication: migration of replication slots during publisher upgrade
Replication slot use log
Unicode: new information functions
New function: xmltext
AT LOCAL support
Infinite intervals
ALTER SYSTEM with unrecognized custom parameters
Building the server from source

We continue to follow the news of the PostgreSQL 17 development. Let's find out what the September commitfest brings to the table.

If you missed our July commitfest review, you can check it out here: 2023-07.

Removed the parameter old_snapshot_threshold
New parameter event_triggers
New functions to_bin and to_oct
New system view pg_wait_events
EXPLAIN: a JIT compilation time counter for tuple deforming
Planner: better estimate of the initial cost of the WindowAgg node
pg_constraint: NOT NULL constraints
Normalization of CALL, DEALLOCATE and two-phase commit control commands
unaccent: the target rule expressions now support values in quotation marks
COPY FROM: FORCE_NOT_NULL * and FORCE_NULL *
Audit of connections without authentication
pg_stat_subscription: new column worker_type
The behaviour of pg_promote in case of unsuccessful switchover to a replica
Choosing the disk synchronization method in server utilities
pg_restore: optimization of parallel recovery of a large number of tables
pg_basebackup and pg_receivewal with the parameter dbname
Parameter names for a number of built-in functions
psql: \watch min_rows

We continue to follow the news in the world of PostgreSQL. The PostgreSQL 16 Release Candidate 1 was rolled out on August 31. If all is well, PostgreSQL 16 will officially release on September 14.

What has changed in the upcoming release after the April code freeze? What's getting into PostgreSQL 17 after the first commitfest? Read our latest review to find out!

The end of the March Commitfest concludes the acceptance of patches for PostgreSQL 16. Let’s take a look at some exciting new updates it introduced.

I hope that this review together with the previous articles in the series (2022-07, 2022-09, 2022-11, 2023-01) will give you a coherent idea of the new features of PostgreSQL 16.

We continue to follow the news of the PostgreSQL 16 release, and today, the results of the fourth CommitFest are on the table. Let's have a look.

If you missed the previous CommitFests, check out our reviews for 2022-07, 2022-09 and 2022-11.

We continue to follow the news of the upcoming PostgreSQL 16. The third CommitFest concluded in early December. Let's look at the results.

If you missed the previous CommitFests, check out our reviews: 2022-07, 2022-09.

Here are the patches I want to talk about:

meson: a new source code build system
Documentation: a new chapter on transaction processing
psql: \d+ indicates foreign partitions in a partitioned table
psql: extended query protocol support
Predicate locks on materialized views
Tracking last scan time of indexes and tables
pg_buffercache: a new function pg_buffercache_summary
walsender displays the database name in the process status
Reducing the WAL overhead of freezing tuples
Reduced power consumption when idle
postgres_fdw: batch mode for COPY
Modernizing the GUC infrastructure
Hash index build optimization
MAINTAIN ― a new privilege for table maintenance
SET ROLE: better role change management
Support for file inclusion directives in pg_hba.conf and pg_ident.conf
Regular expressions support in pg_hba.conf

It's official! PostgreSQL 15 is out, and the community is abuzz discussing all the new features of the fresh release.

Meanwhile, the October CommitFest for PostgreSQL 16 had come and gone, with its own notable additions to the code.

If you missed the July CommitFest, our previous article will get you up to speed in no time.

Here are the patches I want to talk about:

SYSTEM_USER function
Frozen pages/tuples information in autovacuum's server log
pg_stat_get_backend_idset returns the actual backend ID
Improved performance of ORDER BY / DISTINCT aggregates
Faster bulk-loading into partitioned tables
Optimized lookups in snapshots
Bidirectional logical replication
pg_auth_members: pg_auth_members: role membership granting management
pg_auth_members: role membership and privilege inheritance
pg_receivewal and pg_recvlogical can now handle SIGTERM

So far we've discussed query execution stages, statistics, and the two basic data access methods: Sequential scan and Index scan.

The next item on the list is join methods. This article will remind you what logical join types are out there, and then discuss one of three physical join methods, the Nested loop join. Additionally, we will check out the row memoization feature introduced in PostgreSQL 14.

August was a special month in PostgreSQL release cycle as the first CommitFest for the 16th PostgreSQL release was held.

Let's compile the server and check out the cool new stuff!

In the previous articles, we have covered query execution stages, statistics, sequential and index scan, and two of the three join methods: nested loop and hash join.

This last article of the series will cover the merge algorithm and sorting. I will also demonstrate how the three join methods compare against each other.

Queries in PostgreSQL. Hashing

So far we have covered query execution stages, statistics, sequential and index scan, and have moved on to joins.