PostgreSQL

Docker containers offer a lightweight, portable, and consistent way to deploy databases across different environments. This article will guide you through the process of running a PostgreSQL database in a Docker container, providing you with a flexible and scalable solution for your database needs. Why Docker for PostgreSQL? Before diving into the how-to, let’s briefly discuss why running PostgreSQL in a Docker container is beneficial: Isolation: Docker containers provide isolated environments, reducing conflicts with other system components. Portability: Containers can…

Point-in-time recovery (PITR) is a robust feature in PostgreSQL that has become even more efficient and user-friendly with the advent of PostgreSQL. It enables administrators to restore a PostgreSQL database to a specific moment in the past. This is particularly useful if you manage disaster recovery for a large-scale system with a large transaction load. This blog will explore PITR and equip you with knowledge about potential pitfalls and their solutions, ensuring a smooth and successful implementation. We’ll also share…

Welcome to Day 5 of 12 Days of DigitalOcean! Yesterday, you set up your Birthday Reminder Service to run on DigitalOcean Functions, meaning it’s now serverless and cloud-ready. 🎉 Today, you will be taking it a step further by automating it to run on its own schedule—no manual input required. By the end of this guide, your service (or any other function you’re working on) will run automatically at a set time every day. That means no more remembering to…

🎄 12 Days of DigitalOcean: Checking Birthdays and Sending SMS Notifications 🎁 Welcome to Day 3 of 12 Days of DigitalOcean! Over the past two days, we’ve set up a PostgreSQL database and connected to it using Python. Now, it’s time to make our Birthday Reminder Service actually do something useful—send you a text when there’s a birthday today. 🎂 We’ll use Twilio, a service that makes it easy to send SMS messages with just a few lines of code.…

Welcome to Day 4 of 12 Days of DigitalOcean! Yesterday, we added Twilio SMS notifications to our Birthday Reminder Service, making it capable of sending text messages for today’s birthdays. 🎂 Today, we’ll take things to the next level by deploying our script to DigitalOcean Functions. This lets our service run in the cloud without the need for a dedicated server, making our app lightweight, scalable, and ready for automation. With this setup, you’ll receive birthday reminders even when your…

Welcome to Day 2 of 12 Days of DigitalOcean! Yesterday, we started building our Birthday Reminder Service—a simple app that sends SMS notifications for upcoming birthdays. 🎉 We set up a PostgreSQL database on DigitalOcean to store contact details. Today, we’ll connect to that database using Python and set up our project to keep sensitive credentials safe. By the end of this post, you’ll have a Python script that securely fetches data from your database and is ready to scale…

PostgreSQL 17 introduces failover slots that enhance high-availability setups. A replication slot ensures that data remains reliable and consistent between nodes during replication, whereas a failover slot ensures consistency between nodes, specifically during and after a failover. Failover slots are a powerful feature that ensures logical replication can continue seamlessly, even after a failover to a standby server. Using failover slots allows logical replication slots to be automatically synchronized across primary and standby nodes, significantly reducing downtime and the need…

Replication lag in PostgreSQL occurs when changes made on the primary server take time to reflect on the replica server. Whether you use streaming or logical replication, lag can impact performance, consistency, and system availability. This post covers the types of replication, their differences, lag causes, mathematical formulas for lag estimation, monitoring techniques, and strategies to minimize replication lag. Types of Replication in PostgreSQL Streaming Replication Streaming replication continuously sends Write-Ahead Log (WAL) changes from the primary to one or…

As PostgreSQL adoption grows, database administrators (DBAs) and developers often need to assess its performance to ensure their applications run efficiently under different workloads. Performance benchmarking is a critical process that measures how well PostgreSQL handles varying loads, helping identify bottlenecks and areas for optimization. This article explores tools, metrics, and test scenarios to help you benchmark PostgreSQL like a pro. Why Benchmark PostgreSQL? Benchmarking allows you to: Measure the throughput and latency of your database under specific workloads. Identify…