Feb 2019 Newsletter from Citus Data (now part of Microsoft)

Thinking in MapReduce, but with SQL

In this post, Craig explains how thinking in MapReduce for large datasets can give you a path to great performance, without a Herculean effort. And the best part: you don’t have to write 100s of lines of code. You can do it with the same SQL you’re used to writing. Citus takes care of the heavy lifting, but it’s always good to know what’s going on under the covers. ;-)
Read Craig’s post →

The most useful Postgres extension: pg_stat_statements

If you use Postgres and you haven’t used pg_stat_statements, it’s time to add it to your toolbox. And if you are familiar, maybe it’s worth a revisit. Last month, several Citans spent some time at FOSDEM, the annual free and open source software conference in Brussels. By the end of the day in the PostgreSQL devroom, over half the talks recommended pg_stat_statements. Now that’s a ringing endorsement. :-)
More about pg_stat_statements →

Using Postgres & Citus for lightning fast analytics, a demo

In case you missed Sai’s live demo earlier this week, you can watch the recording to see how you can use Postgres and Citus to deliver lightning fast analytics. In this demo Sai compares the performance of a 4-node Citus database cluster to a single Postgres node, as he runs queries and creates btree and GIN indexes.
Watch the demo →

Approximation algorithms for your database

Does an answer that is quite close but not perfectly exact meet your needs if it gives you sub-second responses across huge volumes of data? If so, consider using approximation algorithms like TopN and HLL.
More on approximation algorithms →

TopN for your Postgres database

People seem to love lists of the most popular things. Whether it’s the top grossing sales reps or the most visited pages on your website, for most of us, there is usually something for which we want to know the top “N”. Inspired by Citus Data customer Algolia, TopN is an extension to Postgres that identifies the TopN. In this post, Furkan tells us all the things about TopN.
Read the TopN post →

With Citus and TopN, Algolia speeds up search analytics

Businesses use Algolia’s hosted search as a service to power search-based tools on their own websites and apps. Algolia, a Citus Cloud customer, also provides its customers with rich analytics about their end users’ search behaviors. For example, customers can see the most popular search terms in the past week (TopN in action), or which queries did not return any results in the past month.
How Algolia attained less than 800 ms response times on 95% of queries →

Scalable incremental data aggregation on Postgres and Citus

In this throwback post, Marco walks us through how to build rollup tables in a new and different way, to address the limitations of time windows. By using incremental aggregation, BRIN indexes, & some Postgres magic, our benchmarks show that a Citus cluster can easily process over 1M rows/second and simultaneously respond to analytical queries in under 10ms. Sweet!
Marco explains this approach →

ICYMI: Fun with SQL: Self joins

Self joins are handy when you have rows that need to reference other rows in that same table. In this post, Craig uses a fun family holiday tradition to illustrate how easy and helpful self joins in Postgres can be.
More on self joins in Postgres →

Do you want to stay updated on what’s happening with Citus on Azure?

In case you missed our big news back in January, here it is again: Microsoft has acquired Citus Data! Exciting days. And if you’re wondering, yes, this means that our engineering team is working hard to bring Citus to Azure. If you want to stay in the loop on what’s happening with Citus on Azure, just let us know via email at info@citusdata.com. And if you want to read more about the acquisition from the perspective of our co-founders, here is their take.
About the acquisition, from Citus Data’s co-founders →

So many events and more

Is Citus right for you?

Want to explore whether Citus is right for you and your use case? Learn more about the Citus product, check out the documentation, or let us know if you want to book a demo.