PostgreSQL – Since East 08

Joshua D. DrakePostgreSQL.Org

PgUSCommand Prompt, Inc.

Could we do any more in 6 months?

New development model Non profit structure continuing Better tertiary project interactions Certification making milestones PostgreSQL with Replication What about the next 6 months?

New Development Model

Don't worry, we are still meritocracy based. However we have increased distributed

efficiency• Commit Fest

• 2 months of development• 1 month of review and commit• Increased transparency

More Reviewers!

Increase in development transparency• Increased number of patch reviewers

• Not all are hard core developers• If you can develop in Python (or ahem Perl), you

can likely read (and understand) many patches.• Participating in feature proposals allows for better

perspective for the developers

Release schedule shift

Historically releases come out around December• Creates a dry spell of development and testing in

July and August 8.4 has a slightly longer development timeline

to push release until March 2009• Creates a larger beta cycle allowing for better

testing and higher quality release

Non profit infrastructures continuing

PgEU – Europe as a whole PgUS – United States PgBR - Brazil PgIT - Italian PgFR – French Speaking PgJP – Japan (longer than anyone) SPI – For general International support Did I miss any?

PgEU

PgEU• Moving forward nicely

• Has own conference in conjunction with pg.it in a week

• Has begun process of committees and appropriately organizing

• Here, now – Wave Magnus!

PgUS

PgUS• Moving forward nicely

• Elections, NOW!• Four additional board members to be seated after

election• Platforms :

https://www.postgresql.us/elections/2008• Is speaking at Northern Arizona State in a week

(hopefully the first of many engagements)

Tertiary project interactions

The community is starting to have more proactive interactions with developers who support PostgreSQL outside of the core software• SQL Alchemy (Wave Jek)

• Catalyst, DBIx:Class (Wave MST)

• Drupal• Not here but has set up a list specifically for

ensuring postgresql (and others) have a communication channel:

database@drupal.org

Certification!

The PostgreSQL Certification Project• A project by the community, for professionals

who need certification Isn't certification overrated?

• Yes Then Why?

• Because it is a base level requirement for many positions as well as entry into government.

Certification Milestones

Determine delivery method• Done: Paper (for now, it's cheap)

Proctored or not• Proctored (let's keep it honest)

• Ideas include working with Professors from Higher Education

International Effort• Europe, South America and North America are all

well represented

Certification Status

JTA – Job Task Analysis is open• We need to know what to certify on before we

can certify

• http://www.postgresqlcertification.org/jta Many thanks to the BSD Certification Project

who has helped us tremendously.

PostgreSQL with Replication?

In the beginning there was Er-Server and we were afraid

Then there was Replicator but it was closed Then there was Slony-I but it was

complicated Then there was log shipping but it was limited Then there was an announcement... and we

waited, and waited, and waited... Was it a joke?

PostgreSQL Replicator

A PostgreSQL distribution with integrated replication.

BSD licensed Open Development Works with 8.1 and 8.3

• Replication between versions also supported http://www.commandprompt.com/projects

• /public/replicator

Replication for 8.4

Possibly....• 2ndQuandrant is working on a patch that would

allow synchronous/hot standby functionality

• Read-only slave is still up in the air

• Partial replication is out

• Great for directly connected fail over capable machines.

What about the next 6 months?

More work with Higher Education Continue to court developers Further Advocacy to tertiary groups Release 8.4!

More work with higher education

Develop .edu contacts Determine .edu needs Identify .edu conferences and workshops Interact with students

Develop .edu contacts

Start a dialog• Find out what technology they teach

• Provide information to them• Don't “sell” them, they are busy

• Get information about their programs from their perspective

Determine .edu needs

Talks with Staff, Professors and students What bugs them the most? What problems can PostgreSQL solve for

them?• Remember, it isn't just using PostgreSQL in

curriculum it is using PostgreSQL to solve technological (and budgetary) problems for the school

Major conferences and workshops

The professional world is easy• OSCON

• OpenSource World (prev. Linuxworld)

• WEST/EAST (*flex*)

• PgCon (Ottawa)

• Ohio Linux Fest

• Southern California Expo

Major Conferences part two

Education is different• PostgreSQL does not currently present at:

• Educause• SIGCSE

etc... Convincing the future is proactive and helps

build our base, growing from the ground up.

Interact with Students

Host workshops at schools Conferences where students get in free Provide resources that are directly applicable

• Best practices for relational design are not necessarily best practices for PostgreSQL design

Free Curriculum Internships at PostgreSQL Companies

Continue to court developers!

We can never have enough developers• We want more C hackers

• We want more Perl hackers

• We want more PHP hackers

• We want more Python hackers

• We do not need more LOLCode hackers• Hi Josh!

Court developers part two

Reach out!• We want every utility, application, framework,

and language driver Educate developers, with use cases why

PostgreSQL is the best FOSS database. Insuring we are the most versatile and

developed for platform benefits everyone in this community.

Further education of tertiary groups

Convicing users of Drupal to use PostgreSQL is a good thing

Finding more active developers to participate with pdo_pgsql is a good thing

Participating in the DB API 3.0 (Python) specification is a good thing

Release 8.4

Hopefully with in place upgrades!

(and then go to EAST)