Citus Blog

I talk with a lot of folks that set their database up, start working with it, and then are surprised by issues that suddenly crop up out of nowhere. The reality is, so many don't want to have to be a DBA, instead you would rather build features and just have the database work. But your is that a database is a living breathing thing. As the data itself changes what is the right way to query and behave changes. Making sure your database is healthy and performing at it's maximum level doesn't require a giant overhaul constantly. In fact you can probably view it similar to how you approach personal health. Regular check-ups allow you to make small but important adjustments without having to make dramatic life altering changes to keep you on the right path.

After years of running and managing literally millions of Postgres databases, here's my breakdown of what your regular Postgres health check should look like. Consider running this on a monthly basis to be able to make small tweaks and adjustments and avoid the drastic changes.

Choosing a database isn't something you do every day. You generally choose it once for a project, then don't look back. If you experience years of success with your application you one day have to migrate to a new database, but that occurs years down the line. In choosing a database there are a few key things to consider. Here is your checklist, and spoiler alert, Postgres checks out strongly in each of these categories.

SQL by itself is great and powerful, and Postgres supports a broad array of more modern SQL including things like window functions and common table expressions. But rarely do I write a query where I don't want to tweak or format the data I'm getting back out of the database. Thankfully Postgres has a rich array of functions to help with converting or formatting data. These built-in functions save me from having to do the logic elsewhere or write my own functions, in other words I have to do less work because Postgres has already done it for me which I'm always happy about.

We've covered a set of functions earlier, today we're going to look at some different categories of functions to dive deeper.