Technical

• postgresql
• Technical

• postgresql
• Technical

TLDR: Note to future self… (1) Read this before you modify a table on a live PostgreSQL database. If you do it wrong then your app might totally hang. There is a right way to do it which avoids that. (2) Especially remember the lock_timeout step. Many blog posts around the ‘net are missing this and it’s very important.

Recently I was chatting with some PostgreSQL users (who, BTW, were doing rather large-scale cool stuff in PG) and they asked a question about making schema changes with minimal impact to the running application. They were specifically curious about changing a primary key from INT to BIGINT.  (Oh, you are making all your new PK fields BIGINT right?)

TLDR: Note to future self… (1) Read this before you modify a table on a live PostgreSQL database. If you do it wrong then your app might totally hang. There is a right way to do it which avoids that. (2) Especially remember the lock_timeout step. Many blog posts around the ‘net are missing this and it’s very important.

Recently I was chatting with some PostgreSQL users (who, BTW, were doing rather large-scale cool stuff in PG) and they asked a question about making schema changes with minimal impact to the running application. They were specifically curious about changing a primary key from INT to BIGINT.  (Oh, you are making all your new PK fields BIGINT right?)

TLDR: Note to future self… (1) Read this before you modify a table on a live PostgreSQL database. If you do it wrong then your app might totally hang. There is a right way to do it which avoids that. (2) Especially remember the lock_timeout step. Many blog posts around the ‘net are missing this and it’s very important.

Recently I was chatting with some PostgreSQL users (who, BTW, were doing rather large-scale cool stuff in PG) and they asked a question about making schema changes with minimal impact to the running application. They were specifically curious about changing a primary key from INT to BIGINT.  (Oh, you are making all your new PK fields BIGINT right?)

Since last October I’ve been periodically writing up summaries of interesting content I see on the internet related to PostgreSQL (generally blog posts). My original motivation was just to learn more about PostgreSQL – but I’ve started sharing them with a few colleagues and received positive feedback.  Thought I’d try posting one of these digests here on the Ardent blog – who knows, maybe a few old readers will find it interesting? Here’s the update that I put together last week – let me know what you think!

Hello from California!

Part of my team is here in Palo Alto and I’m visiting for a few days this week. You know… for all the remote work I’ve done over the years, I still really value this in-person, face-to-face time. These little trips from Seattle to other locations where my teammates physically sit are important to me.

Since last October I’ve been periodically writing up summaries of interesting content I see on the internet related to PostgreSQL (generally blog posts). My original motivation was just to learn more about PostgreSQL – but I’ve started sharing them with a few colleagues and received positive feedback.  Thought I’d try posting one of these digests here on the Ardent blog – who knows, maybe a few old readers will find it interesting? Here’s the update that I put together last week – let me know what you think!

Hello from California!

Part of my team is here in Palo Alto and I’m visiting for a few days this week. You know… for all the remote work I’ve done over the years, I still really value this in-person, face-to-face time. These little trips from Seattle to other locations where my teammates physically sit are important to me.

Since last October I’ve been periodically writing up summaries of interesting content I see on the internet related to PostgreSQL (generally blog posts). My original motivation was just to learn more about PostgreSQL – but I’ve started sharing them with a few colleagues and received positive feedback.  Thought I’d try posting one of these digests here on the Ardent blog – who knows, maybe a few old readers will find it interesting? Here’s the update that I put together last week – let me know what you think!

Hello from California!

Part of my team is here in Palo Alto and I’m visiting for a few days this week. You know… for all the remote work I’ve done over the years, I still really value this in-person, face-to-face time. These little trips from Seattle to other locations where my teammates physically sit are important to me.

This month I worked with a chicagoland company to improve performance for eBusiness Suite on AIX. I’ve worked with databases running on AIX a number of times over the years now. Nevertheless, I got thrown for a loop this week.

TLDR: In the end, it came down to a fundamental change in resource accounting that IBM introduced with the POWER7 processor in 2010. The bottom line is twofold:

This month I worked with a chicagoland company to improve performance for eBusiness Suite on AIX. I’ve worked with databases running on AIX a number of times over the years now. Nevertheless, I got thrown for a loop this week.

TLDR: In the end, it came down to a fundamental change in resource accounting that IBM introduced with the POWER7 processor in 2010. The bottom line is twofold: