Schedule - PGConf.EU 2011

Performance From Start to Crash

Date: 2011-10-18
Time: 09:00–17:00
Room: Amsterdam 1
Level: Intermediate

This tutorial starts with an introduction to the most common setups tasks and best practices to get good performance from a PostgreSQL server. And by the end, you'll learn how to tune a PostgreSQL server the only way that matters some days: when the server performance problems are so bad it has crashed, and you have no idea what's wrong. This is a unique chance to see the habits and tools used by someone who faces that problem constantly, watching the repair of a live demo server that's crashed due to overload.

PostgreSQL is a database system that can deliver excellent performance for a wide variety of applications. But getting the performance related aspects of a new PostgreSQL deployment right can be stressful, particularly if you're new to the database and its quirks. The first part of this tutorial goes over the most common things new PostgreSQL installations do that sabotages their potential performance, and how to avoid making some of those mistakes

And when performance drops far enough, it's possible for the server to slow to where it's essentially down, or even crash altogether. Knowing what to do then is just as important, but it's hard to practice for that day.

Greg is going to login to a server that at the beginning is performing terribly. By the end, it will be running smoothly. You get to watch every step of the way, to see what change were made, and what information collected prompted them. One day, you may find your PostgreSQL database server is unresponsive or down due to performance issues. This session gives you a unique opportunity to prepare. Before it happens to you (again?), you can watch how an expert who does this exact type of support and consulting every day responds.

The material covered will introduce you to:

• Avoiding common flaws made by new PostgreSQL deployments
• Basic PostgreSQL configuration tuning techniques
• Proactive monitoring you should be doing before your problems start
• Tools and techniques to locate the source of problems on a slow server
• PostgreSQL specific monitoring tools
• Good performance tuning methodology

Speaker

Greg Smith

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