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  • 10 min read

    When Did Postgres Become Cool?

    Craig Kerstiens

    Postgres wasn't always the cool kid. It didn't emerge from millions of dollars of VC funding, it didn't have a team of DevRel evangelists championing it, it simply started and evolved. Postgres just passed the 25 year milestone as an open source project. With the upcoming release of Postgres 16 in coming months, we thought we'd pause for a minute and take a look back at Postgres and how it got to where it is today. If for some reason you've been living under a rock and are unfamiliar with Postgr...

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  • XKCD Bad Map Projection with PostGIS

    Paul Ramsey

    Last week, Randall Munroe dropped his latest XKCD "Bad Map Projection", number six, " ABS(Longitude) ", which looks like this: Truly this is a bad map projection, on a par with the previous five: • Liquid Resize • Time Zones • South America • Greenland Special • Madagascator Liquid Resize Time Zones South America Greenland Special Madagascator The last two are just applications of common map projections with very uncommon projection parameters that accentuate certain areas of the globe, a c...

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  • Remote Access Anything from Postgres

    Paul Ramsey

    In my last blog post , I showed four ways to access a remotely hosted CSV file from inside PostgreSQL: • Using the command with the option, • Using the http extension and some post-processing, • Using a PL/Python function, and • Using the ogr_fdw foreign data wrapper. Using the command with the option, Using the http extension and some post-processing, Using a PL/Python function, and Using the ogr_fdw foreign data wrapper. In this post, we are going to explore ogr_fdw a little...

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  • 2 min read

    Introducing Database Insights: Effortless Postgres Management with Crunchy Bridge

    Craig Kerstiens

    Today we're excited to announce several big improvements to Crunchy Bridge to make it easier to work with your database without having to become a DBA. Today we're releasing: • Database insights: Real-time indicators to ensure a healthy database • Metrics: Monitor your system over time • Production check: Ensure you're ready for launch day Database insights: Real-time indicators to ensure a healthy database Metrics: Monitor your system over time Production check: Ensure you're ready for launch...

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  • 5 min read

    Announcing Crunchy Postgres for Kubernetes 5.4

    Craig Kerstiens

    We are happy to unveil the newest release of Crunchy Postgres for Kubernetes version 5.4. This update brings an array of features set to improve your experience including: • Support for ARM • Native vector search via pgvector • Comprehensive support for huge pages • Native support for Postgres tablespaces • Documentation enhancements Support for ARM Native vector search via pgvector Comprehensive support for huge pages Native support for Postgres tablespaces Documentation enhancements To explo...

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  • 11 min read

    Fun with PostgreSQL puzzles: Surface Area and 3D Slices

    Greg Sabino Mullane

    This article will contain spoilers both on how I solved 2022 Day 18's challenge "Boiling Boulders" using SQL, as well as general ideas on how to approach the problem. I recommend trying to solve it yourself first, using your favorite language. (heatmap slicing a 3-D piece of lava - all in SQL!) We've also loaded a tutorial for Day 18's challenge if you want to try it with a pre-loaded data set. Tech: 🐘 The ever important file_fdw 🐘 Using sequences as a crude numbering aid 🐘 A recursi...

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  • Performance Tips for Postgres FDW

    Christopher Winslett

    We have a lot of Postgres foreign data wrapper ( FDW ) users here at Crunchy. The postgres_fdw lets you connect to remote servers and in some cases can be an alternative for traditional ETL/ELT processes. As I see use of the Postgres foreign data wrapper expanding, I wanted to make some recommendations on how to approach performance. When you query from a single Postgres cluster, the database cleverly uses internal statistics to auto-tune performance . However, when querying from the Postgr...

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  • 17 min read

    Fun with PostgreSQL Puzzles: Moving Objects with Arrays, Sequences, and Aggregates

    Greg Sabino Mullane

    (Yes, this image was generated completely by SQL statements!) We've also loaded a tutorial for Day 17's challenge if you want to try it with a pre-loaded data set. This article will contain spoilers both on how I solved 2022 Day 17's challenge "Pyroclastic Flow" using SQL, as well as general ideas on how to approach the problem. I recommend trying to solve it yourself first, using your favorite language. Another puzzle featuring elephants! (❤️ ❤️ ❤️). This time, the elephants are involved in...

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  • Data Skews in Postgres

    Elizabeth Christensen

    We recently gave a talk at SCaLE (Southern California Linux Expo) about common problems and solutions for managing large Postgres databases. One of the topics we covered was data skewing and partial indexing. This piqued some conference discussion afterwards so we wanted to do a deeper dive. Skewed data is when your data is kind of bunched up - essentially it is not evenly distributed. You might have one really large customer with a customer id that takes up more than half the rows in your eve...

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  • Holy Sheet! Remote Access CSV Files from Postgres

    Paul Ramsey

    An extremely common problem in fast-moving data architectures is providing a way to feed ad hoc user data into an existing analytical data system. Do you have time to whip up a web app? No! You have a database to feed, and events are spiraling out of control... what to do? How about a Google Sheet? The data layout is obvious, you can even enforce things like data types and required columns using locking and protecting, and unlike an Excel or LibreOffice document, it's always online, so you can h...

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