It’s our sixth episode of Postgres Café, a collaborative podcast from Data Bene & Xata where we discuss everything from PostgreSQL extensions to community contributions. In today’s episode, Sarah Conway & Gülçin Yıldırım Jelinek meet with Andrea Cucciniello on the topic of how companies and individuals can contribute to open source projects, and why they might consider doing so.
How often do companies express interest in open-source contribution? Clearly, by helping out in any way, the open-source project itself sees a benefit. But are there any advantages for the company that is giving back in any way? What are some contribution methods that a company can consider? These are all questions we hear about constantly—so let’s explore some of the answers discussed in this episode in a quick recap.
At Data Bene, we have a few customers that are interested in developing features or enhancements for the PostgreSQL ecosystem already.
These companies are interested in addressing bugs and adding new features that complement their use cases and tech stacks across PostgreSQL, Citus Data, and related technologies to accomplish two things:
Times change; the only way the upstream software will remain relevant, useful, and beneficial to the global audience using the product is if there are global contributions back to the same, ensuring it still meets real users needs from year to year.
Vendor lock-in is a huge problem in the software & services industry; giving back to open-source projects ensures that technology that is openly developed can continue to be so. Using FOSS technology means you avoid investing in a company that might close the code or restrict access, giving the end user freedom to continue using and developing essential tools that are part of their tech stack.
This kind of software is also subject to a highly visible development process, meaning it is much harder for privacy invasions, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and more to be built into the underlying code.
Additionally, open-source software is built by individuals all over the world with a variety of perspectives and backgrounds; this ensures that it is thoroughly tested, with a wide range of features built-in that are actually useful to many end-users. This helps these kinds of projects to be successful for a number of years and continue to be so as long as there is a community willing to support each of them.
Case-in-point: PostgreSQL has been around for 35+ years of active development and is still topping developer surveys and charts today for being the most liked, most used, and most popular database solution—worldwide!
There are a few key ways to achieve this end-goal:
Cédric Villemain, Data Bene’s president, has developed pg_fincore and is currently working on StatsMgr, pg_psi, and other components that are designed to improve Postgres’ statistics capabilities.
Our team is also responsible for a number of contributions across projects like Citus Data and Zammad.
We make a point of sponsoring, presenting at, & advocating for PostgreSQL or open-source community conferences and user groups, such as PostgreSQL Europe, pgDay Paris, AlpOSS, Capitole du Libre, & more. Some of our team also individually have started or are on the organizational committees for various events such as the Barcelona & Madrid PostgreSQL User Groups and pgDay Lowlands. The impact of events on the larger project & community cannot be understated, and it is important to us to do all we can to contribute in this manner.
Finally, we help customers understand how to contribute to PostgreSQL and similar open-source projects. Through training, workshops, and collaboration, we encourage making meaningful contributions that fit their goals and support the greater community.
If you’re a developer who is interested in contributing to open-source and/or the PostgreSQL ecosystem, or helping customers with R&D requirements, our team is expanding—visit us at our website to see available positions!
Thinking about watching the full discussion? Check it out on YouTube:
We’ve finished our first round of episodes for Postgres Café as of this release! More episodes may or may not be pending… follow us on social media (like LinkedIn or Mastodon) to be updated on more to come. (Would you like to see more from this podcast series? Let us know!)
Subscribe to the playlist or check it out for interviews about open-source extensions like StatsMgr for efficient statistics management for PostgreSQL, an open-source change data capture (CDC) tool designed specifically for PostgreSQL called pgstream, & more. PostgreSQL is one of the most extensible databases on the market with a huge extension ecosystem; learn directly from the experts as you discover some of the options out there.
\n", "date_published": "2025-03-04T00:00:00Z" } ,{ "id": "https://www.data-bene.io/en/blog/postgres-cafe-deploying-distributed-postgresql-at-scale-with-citus-data/", "url": "https://www.data-bene.io/en/blog/postgres-cafe-deploying-distributed-postgresql-at-scale-with-citus-data/", "title": "Postgres Café: Deploying distributed PostgreSQL at scale with Citus Data", "content_html": "\nIt’s time for the fourth episode of Postgres Café, a podcast from our teams at Data Bene and Xata where we discuss PostgreSQL contribution and extension development. In this latest episode, Sarah Conway and Gülçin Yıldırım Jelinek meet with Stéphane Carton to cover Citus Data, a completely open-source extension from Microsoft that provides a solution for deploying distributed PostgreSQL at scale.
The Citus database has experienced 127 releases since Mar 24, 2016 when it was first made freely open-source for open use and contributions. It’s a powerful tool that works natively with PostgreSQL, and seamlessly integrates with all Postgres tools and extensions. Continue reading for a summary of what we covered in this podcast episode!
So why does Citus Data exist, and what problems does it solve? Let’s delve into this by category.
Citus is designed to solve the distributed data modeling problem by providing methods in distributed data modeling to map workloads, such as sharding tables based on primary keys (especially useful for microservices and high-throughput workloads).
By distributing data across multiple nodes, you’re able to enable the horizontal scaling of PostgreSQL databases.
This allows developers to combine CPU, memory, storage, and I/O capacity across multiple machines for handling large datasets and high traffic workloads. It’s simple to add more worker nodes to the cluster and rebalance the shards as your data volume grows.
The distributed query engine in Citus is used to maximize efficiency, parallelizing queries and batching execution across multiple worker nodes.
Even in cases where there are thousands to millions of statements being executed per second, data ingestion is still optimized through finding the right shard placements, connecting to the appropriate worker nodes, and performing operations in parallel. All of this ensures high throughput and low latency for real-time data absorption.
Through the distributed data model, you can create redundant copies of tables and shard data across multiple nodes. Through this process, you can ensure the database remains resilient and available even when nodes crash, and maintain high availability as a result.
At Data Bene, our goal is to support forward momentum of upstream source code through ongoing development and code contributions. Cédric Villemain, among others on our team, constantly assesses for new feature additions or other improvements that can make a difference for users.
No matter whether you’re part of a DevOps team that is looking to build out distributed architecture for your PostgreSQL instances, or an end user such as a business analyst that is seeking efficient performance when handling vast amounts of data, Citus Data may be the perfect extension to support your use case.
If you have specific feature requests or concerns, our team here at Data Bene will help support you to contribute directly to Citus Data or can do so on your behalf to ensure the longevity of the project and relevance for your projects. Learn more about contributing to Citus Data by referencing the official CONTRIBUTING.md file.
Thinking about watching the full discussion? Check it out on YouTube:
More episodes are still being published for Postgres Café! Subscribe to the playlist for more interviews around open-source tools like StatsMgr for efficient statistics management for PostgreSQL, pgzx for the creation of PostgreSQL extensions using Zig, & more. Get ideas from the experts for new extensions to try out and maximize your Postgres deployments.
\n", "date_published": "2025-01-29T00:00:00Z" } ,{ "id": "https://www.data-bene.io/en/blog/postgres-cafe-expand-monitoring-capabilities-with-statsmgr/", "url": "https://www.data-bene.io/en/blog/postgres-cafe-expand-monitoring-capabilities-with-statsmgr/", "title": "Postgres Café: Expand monitoring capabilities with StatsMgr", "content_html": "\n2025 has begun, and with it we’re excited to release the second episode of Postgres Café, a blog and video series from our teams over at Data Bene and Xata made with the intention of exploring the world of open source and where it meets PostgreSQL’s extensibility. Throughout this series, we discuss different extensions and tools that enhance the developer experience when working with PostgreSQL. In our second episode, we explore a brand new PostgreSQL extension called StatsMgr that leverages background workers and shared memory to snapshot, manage, and query various statistics for WAL, SLRU, IO, checkpointing, and more.
In this episode, we introduce the just-released open source extension StatsMgr, created to continuously monitor and track events across PostgreSQL and the underlying system. Here’s a look at what this episode covered:
Originally the idea was to provide a simplified interface for metrics, while enhancing them with a wide variety of available types. This functionality was then expanded to address problems like:
This extension, in turn, is great at handling situations like when…
Currently, supported statistics include:
Each of these is registered with a handler that lets you fetch and manage these statistics, and also is accompanied by shared memory structures for storing historical snapshots.
Some of the next steps for the project will include adding in dynamic statistics such as pg_stat_user_tables, amongst others.
There are still many things to do, from subtle improvements to major new features. So of course there’s many opportunities to contribute to the project, no matter if you’re a new-comer or an advanced PostgreSQL developer. Interested in being a part of the effort? Check out CONTRIBUTING.md within the project.
For an in-depth exploration of StatsMgr and its capabilities, watch the full episode here:
We still have much more to come for Postgres Café. Subscribe to the playlist for episodes that feature more open-source tools like pgroll for zero-downtime schema migrations, Citus Data for distributed and scalable PostgreSQL as an extension, and more. Watch this space to learn how each tool can make working with Postgres smoother and more efficient.
\n", "date_published": "2025-01-07T00:00:00Z" } ,{ "id": "https://www.data-bene.io/en/blog/welcome-to-the-new-data-bene-blog/", "url": "https://www.data-bene.io/en/blog/welcome-to-the-new-data-bene-blog/", "title": "Welcome to the new Data Bene blog", "content_html": "\nAt Data Bene, we’re excited to unveil the latest version of our blog, where we will delve into PostgreSQL, open-source technologies, and the dynamic world of startups. With this update, we’re eager to bring you a curated selection of technical insights, industry news, and success stories to inspire and inform.
As loyal supporters of open-source solutions, we champion PostgreSQL for its ability to drive innovation and efficiency in modern businesses. Through our articles and tutorials, we aim to empower users to unlock it’s full potential. We will discuss our favourite features as well as provide updates on the latest advancements—topics we believe help in leveraging this powerful relational database management system.
In today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape, open source has become synonymous with collaboration, innovation, and community-driven development. We’re strongly committed to showcasing the transformative potential of open source as a result.
Because of this, in our blog we will explore:
With years of experience working alongside a diverse range of companies, from emerging startups to global enterprises, we’ve seen firsthand how innovative organizations leverage PostgreSQL to drive their success. Our blog will feature not only insights from entrepreneurs and tech leaders sharing their experiences but also in-depth articles from our own PostgreSQL experts. They will discuss their favorite PostgreSQL features and native tools, the challenges they’ve faced, and how they overcame them, providing a unique, technical perspective on overcoming real-world challenges.
We’ll also dive into emerging trends and new technologies that are shaping the future of PostgreSQL, offering a window into how startups and established businesses alike are navigating the fast-evolving landscape of data management. Whether it’s through interviews with founders or analysis of groundbreaking projects, we’ll highlight how PostgreSQL continues to be a key enabler of innovation in today’s tech-driven world.
Finally, at Data Bene, sustainability isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a core value that guides our every endeavor. As we embark on new development initiatives and explore cutting-edge technologies, we’re committed to minimizing our environmental footprint and promoting eco-friendly practices. From optimizing software efficiency to reducing energy consumption, we’re dedicated to building a more sustainable future, one line of code at a time. Consequently, some of the articles we release will highlight these practices and open up the topic of sustainability within PostgreSQL development practices for discussion.
We invite you to join us on this exciting journey of exploration, discovery, and innovation. Whether you’re a PostgreSQL enthusiast, an open-source advocate, a startup aficionado, a long-time developer, or just curious, there’s something for everyone in our blog! So bookmark this page, follow us on LinkedIn and keep an eye out for our upcoming newsletter. Anywhere you follow, you’ll be able to stay tuned for regular updates packed with valuable insights and inspiration.
Thank you for being a part of our community. Together, let’s embark on a journey of growth, learning, and shared success.
\n", "date_published": "2024-10-02T00:00:00Z" } ] }