Attending PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2024 in Athens is an incredible experience, full of enriching conversations and technical deep dives. As a DBA Consultant and speaker (on the reserve list and honored to have been chosen), it was my first time meeting this amazing community in person and I was immediately struck by the camaraderie and shared passion for PostgreSQL.

The atmosphere was welcoming, with everyone — from those just starting their PostgreSQL journey to seasoned veterans — eager to exchange knowledge. I even had the pleasure of meeting people whose blogs and posts I’ve followed for years, like Laurenz Albe. These interactions made me realize how vibrant and collaborative this community is.

The choices of talks to attend is quite tricky for me as I wanted to attend all of them.
You might want to check your self the schedule to get the idea :

Schedule — PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2024

Sessions I Attended

Opening & Keynote: PostgreSQL and Licensing
The conference kicked off with a keynote that touched on the licensing structure of PostgreSQL. It was an insightful reminder of how PostgreSQL remains free and open-source, empowering countless organizations worldwide to run enterprise-grade databases without the burden of licensing fees and extending on the fact that the real fee was time and effort from the contributor and the community.

Cybertec: High Concurrency & Distributed Snapshots
This session dived into Cybertec’s research on improving high-concurrency workloads by implementing distributed snapshots. The idea of using a Commit Sequence Number system, similar to what Yugabyte uses with hybrid time, was particularly intriguing. I have to admit that I didn’t get most of the talk as this was part of the internal track but it was very interesting to see efforts being made by committers and the current on going improvement in making read and write IO capabilities even better.

Laurenz Albe: Security Attacks on PostgreSQL
Laurenz’s talk on security attacks was one of my most anticipated sessions. He covered practical techniques to defend against common security vulnerabilities in PostgreSQL. His advice on setting security_barrier = ON for views, properly configuring security definer functions, and the potential abuse of search paths was invaluable. It reinforced how critical it is to consider these security measures when architecting secure PostgreSQL solutions. Myself I have a blog pending on this since some weeks now but the talk motivated me to publish it with some new ideas.

Michael Bank: Patroni Deployment Patterns
As someone involved in high-availability setups, the session on Patroni deployment patterns by Michael Bank was a must-see. Michael explored various ways to implement Patroni in different environments, focusing on best practices and real-world examples. It provided a deeper understanding of how to fine-tune Patroni architectures in production environments, a topic that resonates with my ongoing work.

Social event
In the evening there was a social event where drinks and food were served and it was the occasion to meet even more people and speak all the languages you can…
It was the occasion for some to dress up :


The first day of the conference offered not only technical depth but also meaningful exchanges with fellow DBAs. The talks, combined with discussions, provided a perfect blend of learning and sharing.

Looking forward to what the rest of the conference holds !