PostgreSQL November Meetup

Host: redgate

Speakers:

Josef Machytka, PostgreSQL specialist at credativ GmbH

New features in PostgreSQL 18.

For the PostgreSQL community, autumn is “the first Christmas” - when a new major version arrives. PostgreSQL 18 brings significant features and improvements. The headline is asynchronous I/O for reads, delivering faster large‑table scans and other read‑heavy operations. New and expanded instrumentation—richer I/O statistics and more informative EXPLAIN—turns those gains into repeatable practice. Query performance improves with B‑tree skip scans and better handling of OR/IN. On the reliability side, data checksums are enabled by default, allowing quick detection of data corruption. Rounding it out are quality‑of‑life improvements such as hardened authentication and many other smaller, practical features.

Daria Nikolaenko, Database Engineer in Data Egret

The art of data retention in PostgreSQL

Managing growing datasets without hurting performance is one of the toughest challenges for PostgreSQL users. This talk explores how to apply data retention policies, partitioning, and archiving techniques to keep performance steady over time. Through practical PostgreSQL examples, we’ll see how to keep your database lean, queries fast, and historical data safely preserved.