Increasing Confidence in Production - From Postgres Operators to Terraform Tests

We are back to get hands-on with two pillars of real-world cloud platforms: stateful data and reproducible infrastructure.
First, we’ll pit leading PostgreSQL Operators against each other to see which one actually delivers in-cluster reliability, upgrades, backups, and day-2 ops without drama. Then we’ll shift to Terraform and ask the uncomfortable question: is testing just for platform nerds—or the only sane way to keep your environments from drifting into chaos?
Expect concrete demos and takeaways you can apply in your own projects.

THIS MEETUP will be in ENGLISH and HYBRID. | Zoom Link is visible for remote attendees when available.

*** AGENDA ***

• 6:30-7:00 PM | Doors open. Grab some snacks & drinks.
• 7:00 PM | Welcome & Intro Start of the hybrid meetup
• 7:05 PM | Database Tamers in the Cluster: Which PostgreSQL Operator Leads the Pack? by Alex Senger (ORDIX AG)
• around 8:05 PM | Testing in Terraform: only for platform nerds? by Alexander Eimer (QAware GmbH)
• afterwards: More snacks & drinks, and a lot of time for networking with all attendees and speakers.

*** ABSTRACTS ***

Database Tamers in the Cluster: Which PostgreSQL Operator Leads the Pack? by Alex Senger (ORDIX AG)

The growing shift of workloads into Kubernetes environments has led to a paradigm shift for databases as well, including PostgreSQL. While simple deployments may still be handwritten or use Helm as a "package manager" for more complex applications, the situation is different when it comes to databases. Here, operators are preferred for their features and convenience. Operators are tools that simplify automation, management, and high availability for PostgreSQL databases on Kubernetes.
However, there are several providers of such operators, raising the question: which one is best suited for your use case?
This presentation compares the following five operators based on conceptual and measurable criteria:

• Crunchy Postgres for Kubernetes
• CloudNativePG
• Zalando Postgres Operator
• StackGres
• KubeDB by AppsCode

The results of the comparison show that while all operators are similar in terms of features, KubeDB and CloudNativePG stand out with significantly faster failover times.

Testing in Terraform: only for platform nerds? by Alexander Eimer (QAware GmbH)

Infrastructure as Code deserves the same testing discipline as application code. This talk makes the case for testing Terraform, then outlines a pragmatic approach you can apply without turning IaC into ceremony. We’ll map the native testing capabilities across the delivery lifecycle—guarding inputs, capturing assumptions, exercising modules before rollout, and checking real environments after changes—and show where each fits in CI/CD.

You’ll learn how to choose the right kind of test for the risk at hand, how much coverage is “enough,” and how to integrate tests so they speed you up instead of slowing you down. We’ll also touch on portability across ecosystems (e.g., OpenTofu) and when external frameworks still earn their keep.

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