Find out 📣 who is speaking 📣 at POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2024.
Kenny Gorman, Chief Technologist; Data for Rackspace, spoke to us recently about PGConf Silicon Valley. Kenny's talk at PGConf Silicon Valley 2015 is Cloud PostgreSQL Automation Management with Ansible. The Ansible automation framework makes it very easy to provision infrastructure, but it's also fantastic for managing PostgreSQL systems, he says.
Terry: Kenny, you have many years experience with various database platforms behind some of the busiest websites in the world… Paypal, eBay, Match.com, and Shutterfly, to name but a few. You were also an early adopter of MongoDB, are a Mongo Master in fact, and co-founded ObjectRocket, a MongoDB service provider acquired by Rackspace in 2012.
My question is: why are you using PostgreSQL in production at Rackspace? And why are you using Ansible? What are the pros and cons?
Kenny: In 2008 I joined Hi5.com. At the time the company was one of the top 3 social networks in the world. We were very popular in Asia at the time. I joined because they had big problems with scaling PostgreSQL to meet the demand of customer growth. When I got there I was astounded by the database load. We had hundreds of TBs of data with an insane number of transactions per second. My job was to help ensure we could scale and that we where running as efficiently as possible. That’s when I fell in love with PostgreSQL.
Rackspace doesn't offer PostgreSQL as a service but we have a huge installed base, both by customers and internally. PostgreSQL has a huge following, and for the most part, these folks don't make a big stink about it. The database just keeps working and doing what it does. Internally it powers a number of critical systems. We have a number of brilliant PostgreSQL people on staff.
Ansible is interesting, it's been on a tear lately. The thing about Ansible is it fits really nicely with a DevOps paradigm. The concept of having simple to read and use playbooks makes it simple for PostgreSQL folks to pick up and contribute to. Not just for deploying databases, but more so for management. I think over time Ansible will prove itself a massive benefit for management versus just deployment.
Terry: How big is the deployment? And is this part of a Polyglot Persistence model?
Kenny: Being a service provider, customers deploy PostgreSQL on our cloud systems. At this juncture we have a *lot* of folks using PostgreSQL on Rackspace (based on Support ticket volume). The systems we run internally are quite large, and frankly, mission critical. PostgreSQL is a key technology that we rely on to run our business.
Terry: Why don’t more organizations, in your view, use PostgreSQL in production?
Kenny: Having founded ObjectRocket, which is a high performance, sharded MongoDB as a Service, I would like to say that I sit squarely in the middle of the NoSQL movement. That said, what I think is missing is folks aren't aware that NoSQL isn't a replacement for RDBMS type systems. Rather, it's a tool in our tool chest as DBAs, Developers, Architects, etc. The savvy architect will use these different technologies to great effect and maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
I think PostgreSQL to some extent has been left out in the cold during this movement. Large companies are pimping the latest NoSQL technologies and quietly in the background the PostgreSQL community has been building an outstanding database platform. I think a lot of it is hype related. A smart technologist will use a particular technology where it makes sense and these days there is zero excuse to not evaluate PostgreSQL for a huge assortment of workloads. It's an amazing piece of technology and the word needs to get out more.
Terry: What will you cover in your session and who should attend? Also, what will they take away from it?
Kenny: OK, I am super excited to give my talk. It's a stretch for me because, frankly, Ansible is so new to me. But I think what is interesting is I will be focusing on the *management* of PostgreSQL with Ansible. I hope this opens folk’s minds to how Ansible can be a core tool for DBAs and Developers who build on PostgreSQL and help folks adopt PostgreSQL easier.
The folks who should attend are Developers and DBAs who are either thinking about using PostgreSQL or already are and struggling with managing a large suite of databases. Or shoot, even if you are a nerd like me and just want to see what the nexus of Ansible and PostgreSQL looks like!
Terry: Taking a look at the rest of the conference’s schedule, what other sessions are you interested in attending?
Kenny: I can't wait to hear Derek Nelson talk about PipelineDB. It's a very interesting piece of technology and I think that team has done great things with it so far. I am also super keen to hear what Jason Petersen has to present on pg_shard. I have been using pg_shard a bit and would love to hear more about it from Jason!
Terry: And finally, is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers when it comes to PostgreSQL?
Kenny: Some of the upcoming features in PostgreSQL 9.5 are super exciting, especially the JSONB enhancements, BRIN indexing, and the foreign table enhancements.
Terry: More information on Rackspace and Kenny’s role follows:
With more than 300,000 customers worldwide (including two-thirds of the FORTUNE 100), Rackspace helps businesses tap the power of cloud computing without the challenge and expense of managing complex IT infrastructure and application platforms on their own.
Rackspace engineers also deliver specialized expertise on top of leading technologies -- developed by OpenStack, Microsoft, VMware and others -- through a results-obsessed service known as Fanatical Support.
As Chief Technologist; Data, Kenny Gorman, leads this team at Rackspace, which was named a leader in the 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting, and has been honored as one of Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For in six of the past eight years.
Terry: Thank you for speaking with us, Kenny.
Register for PGConf Silicon Valley by October 4, 2015 and enjoy Early Bird Rates. Use discount code CitusData20 for an additional 20% savings off the current prices. We hope to see you at PGConf SV!
