Speaker: Anton Khainak
Title: Zero-to-Hero: Postgres 12 ➔ 16 Upgrade in Production
Abstract: Upgrading production databases is always a little scary — especially when you’re talking about 2TB of live production data. In this talk, I'll share the real-world story of how we upgraded a large Aurora PostgreSQL cluster from version 12 to 16 with minimal downtime using AWS Blue/Green Deployments. I'll walk through the research process (including options like pg_upgrade and DMS), the real-world challenges we faced (like old instance types and tricky parameter group setups), and how we tested everything before the final switchover. If you're curious about how to approach big system changes safely — or just want to hear some "in the trenches" lessons — this talk is for you.
Bio: Anton is a Tech/Team Lead at StealthSeminar.com. A software engineer and tech lead with 10 years of experience building web applications, backend systems, and distributed architectures. I enjoy working with technologies like Ruby, PHP, Node.js, and Golang, with a strong focus on PostgreSQL and AWS. Currently, I'm leading the engineering team at Stealth Seminar, an automated webinar platform.
Location: We'll be at Capital Factory, on the 5th floor, in the Padawan room.
Fixins/Vittles Sponsor: Hessler Consulting - Supporting early & growth stage startups in software development and technical leadership
Digital Sponsor: Hessler Consulting - Supporting early & growth stage startups in software development and technical leadership
Location Sponsor: Capital Factory - The center of gravity for entrepreneurs in Texas. They meet the best entrepreneurs in Texas and introduce them to their first investors, employees, mentors and customers. To sign up for a Capital Factory coworking membership, click here
Event Notes: There is free street parking around the area after 6pm on Tuesdays. If you need to park in the garage we can get validations setting the cost to $8.
