Daniel Westermann

Setting up IBM Db2 on Linux

My last contact with IBM Db2 was more than 10 years ago, and that only on the SQL/application level. I've never done an installation of Db2 as most of our customers either don't use it, or we(…)

Open source monitoring solutions (2) – Zabbix agents and PostgreSQL monitoring

By the end of the last post we finished with a running Zabbix server which uses PostgreSQL as it's back-end database. In addition a Zabbix agent is running on the same host, so the monitoring host itself(…)

PostgresBuild2021 – questions feedback (1)

PostgresBuild2021 is currently ongoing and as usual, I had questions after my talk I could not immediately answer. One of the best ways to learn, is to present a topic. There are for sure questions you never(…)

Open source monitoring solutions (1) – Zabbix server setup

We are often asked which monitoring solution we recommend for PostgreSQL, by people attending our PostgreSQL workshops. We usually answer: What do you have in place already? If a solution already is in place, the most obvious(…)

Switching from CentOS 8 to Red Hat 8

We have quite a few customers still running on CentOS 8 and you probably already are aware that CentOS 8 will be end of life by the end of this year. This forces a(…)

Using pgBackRest to backup your PostgreSQL instances to a s3 compatible storage

When it comes to backup and restore of PostgreSQL we usually recommend pgBackRest to our customers. This tool comes with many options and features and should bring everything you need. Most of the times we install a(…)

Minor PostgreSQL version upgrades in a Patroni cluster

Last week PostgreSQL 14.1, and all other minor versions for the supported version of PostgreSQL have been released. As usual, it is highly recommended to update to the latest minor release as soon as possible. Minor version(…)

PostgreSQL 15: read some options for pg_dump from a file

PostgreSQL 15 will probably come with a new feature for pg_dump: Instead of passing the arguments/options directly to pg_dump when it is executed, you may also use a file to describe what you want to export. In(…)

Why does my first tablespace in PostgreSQL always get the OID 16384?

For those already familiar with this topic and wonder about the heading, hold on and continue reading. One of the exercises we do in our PostgreSQL DBA Essentials workshop is to create a tablespace. This is to(…)

How to efficiently add constraints to existing tables in PostgreSQL

Is is not a surprise that applications change over time. New tables get added, columns need to be changed or new ones are required, and sometimes you need to add check constraints or foreign keys to already existing tables which(…)