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2026-10-13

On learning InnoDB: A journey to the core
I've been using InnoDB for about a decade now, and up to now have understood it well enough to make it do what I wanted, most of the time. However in order to achieve some goals related to efficiency, I've found it necessary to take my understanding to the next level. Unfortunately, the InnoDB documentation…
TopN extension for your Postgres database
TopN is an open source extension to PostgreSQL, from the builders of the Citus distributed database. TopN can be used to calculate the most frequently occurring values in a column, and is part of the class of probabilistic distinct algorithms called sketch algorithms. This post explains how TopN works.
PostgreSQL: Backend Flowchart
PostgreSQL backend processes queries: parse, rewrite, optimize into a plan, then execute and return results to the client.
PostgreSQL triggers and isolation levels
Learn how the MVCC-based PostgreSQL isolation levels guarantee read and write consistency when executing database triggers.
Re-Introducing Hash Indexes in PostgreSQL
There is a type of index you are probably not using, and may have never even heard of. It is wildly unpopular, and until a few PostgreSQL versions ago it was highly discouraged and borderline unusable, but under some circumstances it can out-perform even a B-Tree index.
Data denormalization is broken
Data denormalization is broken Why it’s impossible to write good application-layer code for everyday business logic Backend engineers can’t write elegant and performant application-layer code for …
Lesser Known PostgreSQL Features
A list of useful features you already have, but may not know about! In this article I share lesser known features of PostgreSQL.
Faster Geospatial Enrichment: PostgreSQL vs ClickHouse vs BigQuery
Benchmarks & Tips for Big Data, Hadoop, AWS, Google Cloud, PostgreSQL, Spark, Python & More...
Writing a SQL database, take two: Zig and RocksDB
Writing a SQL database, take two: Zig and RocksDB
How to simulate a broken database connection for testing in Django
Three different options for how to effectively test Django code accessing the database
The Leadership Myth in Replicated Databases
I’ve heard multiple times that a strong notion of leadership somehow simplifies replication. I don’t think this is true. I explain why in this post.
Data Anonymization with PostgreSQL and SQLAlchemy
Developers face a unique challenge in the era of stringent data privacy laws like GDPR and SOC2 compliance. This article delves into how developers can access necessary data without compromising user privacy, specifically focusing on PostgreSQL databases.
How Postgres is Misused and Abused in the Wild
This post contains the slides from the talk that I gave at PGConf.dev in Vancouver a few weeks ago, together with the transcript and ...
New powerful JSON data type for ClickHouse
We’re excited to introduce our new and significantly enhanced JSON data type, purpose-built to deliver high-performance handling of JSON data. Our core engineer, Pavel Kruglov, dives into how we built this feature on top of ClickHouse's columnar storage.
The Halloween Problem in Databases
Halloween Problem: Database updates moving rows can cause revisits or infinite loops; named for its 1970s Halloween discovery in query optimization.

2026-10-12

Conversations with Datomic
Human: Hi Datomic. I have been hearing good things about you. I would like to talk to you and get to know you. Is that alright? Datomic: Sure! I would be happy to talk with you. What language would you like to converse in? Human: I like Clojure. Datomic: That is one of my favorites too. You know how to setup a Leiningen project right? Human: Oh yes. What dependency should I use?
Measuring 3 paths to upgrade from PostgreSQL 14 to 18 using official Docker images: Startup fails with old mounts, and pg_upgrade stops due to checksums
PostgreSQL 14 will reach its final release on 2026-11-12. Reports in the docker-library/postgres issues and Japanese articles (see the Sources section) state that the official Docker image has changed the PGDATA and VOLUME paths starting from version 18, causing startup to fail if the old -v mou
If you swap a MySQL 8.4 volume to 9.7, accounts using mysql_native_password will no longer be able to connect—though it will start. I measured what remains and what stops working
MySQL 9.7 is the next LTS after 8.4, and the official stance supports the path from 8.4 LTS to 9.7 LTS. Meanwhile, mysql_native_password was removed in 9.0.0. I wanted to verify if an 8.4 Docker volume containing native accounts could still connect after being swapped to a 9.7 image, even if it
Redshift Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
Heap is the only digital insights platform that shows everything users do on your site, revealing the "unknown unknowns" that stay invisible with other tools.
Episode 97 - Single Table Inheritance
Learn to use single table inheritance to allow multiple classes to be stored in the same database table.
On Disk IO, Part 2: More Flavours of IO
On Disk IO, Part 2: More Flavours of IO If you like the series, check out my upcoming book on Database Internals! Series consist of 5 pieces: Flavors of IO: Page Cache, Standard IO, O_DIRECT More …
MapReduce: A major step backwards (2008)
DeWitt and Stonebraker argue MapReduce is a backward, non-novel, feature-poor database paradigm, though commenters say it's a different tool.
On Disk IO, Part 3: LSM Trees
On Disk IO, Part 3: LSM Trees If you like the series, check out my book on Database Internals! New series on Distributed System concepts in Databases can be found here. In the first and second parts …
Amazon DynamoDB Transactions
May 20, 2024: As of September 2022, DynamoDB now supports 100 items per transactions. March 13, 2020: Post updated to clarify how to use transactions with global tables and the increase in the maximum number of items per transaction from 10 to 25. Over the years, customers have used Amazon DynamoDB for lots of different […]
Sharding Your Data With PostgreSQL 11
pgDash is an in-depth monitoring solution designed specifically for PostgreSQL deployments. pgDash shows you information and metrics about every aspect of your PostgreSQL database server, collected using the open-source tool pgmetrics.
HyperLogLog in PostgreSQL Amazon Aurora RDS
HyperLogLog (HLL) is a useful and interesting probabilistic data structure used to count unique values in a given data set with good accuracy and speed. Having this data type in a PostgreSQL-compatible Relational Database system fulfills various reporting needs to measure metrics like unique visitors.
Against unnecessary databases
Parse, don't normalize
How to Efficiently Choose the Right Database for Your Applications
In this post, we will share what criteria to use for selecting a database and some decision models to help you efficiently pick a database.
Scalable OLTP in the Cloud: What’s the big deal?
This paper is from Pat Helland, the apostate philosopher of database systems, overall a superb person, and a good friend of mine. The paper...
Perf is not enough
Are database benchmarks still relevant ? Let's understand why it's a poor way to choose a database.
PostgreSQL's default wal_sync_method on a Mac skips the drive flush
PostgreSQL's default wal_sync_method on macOS never forces the drive to flush. With fsync_writethrough, 14,400 commits a second became 260. Crash test included.
DELETEs are difficult
Why are database DELETEs complex and inefficient? Uncover challenges from physical data removal to autovacuum, and find strategies for managing large deletions.
7 Databases in 7 Weeks for 2025
7 databases to explore in 2025.
MDCC: Multi-Data Center Consistency
A new commit protocol for efficiently achieving strong consistency in databases across data centers.
MongoDB 3.2: Now powered by Postgres
Opinions expressed are solely my own, and do not express the views or opinions of my employer. When I finally pieced together all the clues, I was shocked.
PostgreSQL: 2017-05-11 Security Update Release
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released an update to all supported versions of our database system, including 9.6.3, 9.5.7, …
process-separated SQLite
Sequestering database operations in a protected process.
Postgres isn't slow, your storage is
A recap of Sai Srirampur's POSETTE 2026 talk on storage performance in Postgres, with a local NVMe vs. EBS benchmark and the production setup behind it.
Designing a Userspace Disk I/O Scheduler for Modern Datastores: the Scylla example (Part 1)
Part one: How can a high-performance application guarantee that all I/O requests are served with the correct priority? Find out here.
FoundationDB is Open Source
FoundationDB is now open source: a distributed key-value store with global ACID transactions, layers, and a community-driven future.

2026-10-11

SELECT wat FROM sql
A tour of bizarre PostgreSQL query quirks: GROUP BY mismatches, ORDER BY oddities, array/JSON edge cases, and other surprising SQL behaviors.
How RocksDB works
RocksDB is an embeddable persistent key-value store using an LSM-tree, memtables, WAL, SST files, and compaction to handle write-heavy workloads.
What If OpenDocument Used SQLite
Essay argues using SQLite instead of ZIP for OpenDocument could shrink files, speed saves/startup, cut memory, and add versioning.
SQLite 3.54 stops rewriting JSON indexes when the field didn't change
SQLite 3.54 skips expression-index writes when an UPDATE leaves the indexed value alone. We measured it on 500,000 JSON rows: 3 WAL pages per update became 1.
Sentinel-free schemas: a thought experiment
We systematically design a database schema that does not use NULLs and sentinel values.  We look at the consequences of this design decisions and provide some guidance on designing the schemas that way.
Time-based retention strategies in Postgres
Discover all the strategies for time-based retention in Postgres. Great for managing event logs, audit trails, or time-series data.
Anatomy of Redis
Explore one Redis instance: command path, data structures, allocator, OS memory, and persistence.
Storing Pokémon without SQL
veekun may replace its messy SQL schema with per-game YAML data, using Python objects, to handle languages, forms, and changes across games.
Migrating 1200 db from Mysql to Postgres
Once Upon a Time there was a company called Base7Booking that by the beginning of 2016 it was supporting around 1200 databases on MySQL 5...
Stability in a Chaotic World: How Postgres Makes Transactions Atomic
A dive into the mechanics that allow Postgres to provide strong atomic guarantees despite the chaotic entropy of production.
CVE-2019-9193 (COPY TO/FROM PROGRAM in PostgreSQL)
There's a new article out in Computer Weekly talking about CVE-2019-9193 . The PostgreSQL project has issued a statement saying that this i...
Install ClickHouse Faster
Benchmarks & Tips for Big Data, Hadoop, AWS, Google Cloud, PostgreSQL, Spark, Python & More...
A minimal distributed key-value database with Hashicorp's Raft library
A minimal distributed key-value database with Hashicorp's Raft library
TPC-H benchmark of Hyper, DuckDB and Datafusion on Parquet files
In this blog post, we focus on directly querying Parquet files using three different SQL engines, and more specifically their Python API: The TPC-H…
Resolving a year-long ClickHouse lock contention
Here's how we fixed a problem that had stumped us for over a year and saw a 5x performance improvement in the process.
How shredding JSON is giving Logfire 1000x query speedups
How dynamic shredding makes the vast majority of queries in Logfire a thousand times faster, with early adopter customers reporting more than 1000x improvement on query performance.

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