Experts in Postgres and Open Source Infrastructure

24x7, 365 Enterprise services since 1997

Blog

Configuring Pylons on Ubuntu Hardy

I recently configured a complete Pylons + PostgreSQL environment for a customer. The operating system was (of course) Ubuntu Hardy. The system included the use of Simpycity and WSGI. Although I could never done it without the Pylons documentation, I found that it was unnecessary complicated for those who just want to get it done. These are the steps I took:

Install some dependencies: The use of …

2nd call for papers: PostgreSQL Conference East!

PostgreSQL Conference East is being held at historic Drexel University on April 3rd through 5th 2009 . This is the second call for papers. The call for papers ends Feb 23rd and speakers will be notified on the 27th. You may submit your talk here. We are looking for a wide range of topics. Can you speak on any of the below topics? What about a different topic? As long …

PostgreSQL and Replicator at Northwest Python Day

Last Saturday I gave a talk at the Northwest Python Day in Seattle. Unfortunately it was a short talk of only 30 minutes so I didn't get to cover all the topics I wanted but I was able to briefly share on PostgreSQL and on configuring PostgreSQL (Mammoth) Replicator. Just for grins I started the talk off with a question, "Please raise your hand if you are running Ubuntu." There …

Reflecting on the great community discussion

As I diligently prepare for PostgreSQL Conference East 09 by trying to ensure that we have enough talks (hint: talk submission closes Feb 27th). We have a suggested hotel and that everyone knows it is going on (including the Groovy, Python, MySQL, PHP and Ruby communities), I take heart in knowing that our community PostgreSQL can have a well thought out, pointed and productive discussion like no other. I …

East 09: Call for papers!

PostgreSQL Conference, U.S., East 09 will be held in Philadelphia at historic Drexel University from April 3rd through 5th. The call for papers is now out.

As always we let our submissions define our actual tracks. If you have something you want to talk about it. Submit it. As long as it is about PostgreSQL (or doing something with PostgreSQL) we will consider it.

We are seeking creative ideas about …

FK, CHECK, ENUM or DOMAIN. That is the question.

We have a customer that recently asked me to comment on which I would use for a particular problem. This is a simple validating lookup. For example, CHECK(VALUE IN ('foo','bar')). Should we use a CHECK constraint, FK, ENUM or DOMAIN?

A CHECK constraint is easy to apply and has simple syntax. It is also extremely flexible in solving other types of validating problems. If your valid values change you must …

Replicator meeting log for 01-08-09 is up

The PostgreSQL + Replicator meeting logs for 01-08-09 are up. This was a long meeting held on #replicator using the Freenode IRC service. Topics covered were the removal of the Single Point of Failure of the MCP which is partially done. The new in the PostgreSQL backend forwarder works but now the question is how to safely handle failover. Take a look, maybe you have an idea.

PostgreSQL Conference / PgCon.US update

In an attempt to ensure the continued positive growth of the community, PostgreSQL Conference, U.S. is going to change its current policy toward the domain PgCon.US. The current policy is that the domain would only be used in lieu of http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ when space was significantly to display the long URL was significantly limited. The new policy will be that PgCon.US will not be used. I would encourage any and all …

PITRTools: Multiple slave support

I gave a lightning talk at Pg Conference: West 08 about a tool that I have developed call PITRTools. PITRTools is a python based log shipping utility. Essentially it wraps itself around standard tools such as rsync, and pg_standby to provide a usable experience. Some of the features is provides are:
  • Auto initialization of environment
  • Simple base backups
  • Monitoring of Master
  • Arbitrary alerts
  • Failover
  • Failover actions
  • etc...
In all it …

PostgreSQL Replicator Update 01.06.09

I know it appears that it has been pretty quiet since we open sourced Replicator but that isn't the case. We have been actively working on 1.9 and fixing 1.8 Beta as bug reports have come in, including a bug to sequence replication. However, 1.9 is the true milestone release where we have finally moved away from the original architecture. For those that don't know, the original architecture looked like …