PostgreSQL Field Notes

Notes for the problems that show up after launch: bad plans, awkward migrations, index debt, vacuum pressure, replica lag, and the small decisions that make PostgreSQL easier to operate.

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February 15, 20266 min read

AWS Aurora Postgres Replica Lag: Different from Vanilla, Different to Diagnose

Aurora's replica lag has different mechanics than vanilla streaming replication. The dashboard metric "replica lag" can be misleading. Here is what it actually measures.

February 14, 202613 min read

PostgreSQL Locks and Deadlocks: Detection, Prevention, and Triage

Lock incidents look mysterious until you map the blockers. Start with who is waiting, who is holding, and whether the application creates the pattern.

February 13, 20265 min read

Google Cloud SQL Maintenance Windows: What Actually Happens and What to Plan For

Cloud SQL maintenance windows are mostly fine and occasionally not. Here is what happens during them, what gets restarted, and how to make sure your application survives.

February 12, 20266 min read

Azure Database for Postgres Flexible Server: The Settings Worth Tuning

Azure Flex's defaults are conservative. The Server parameters blade is where most of the meaningful tuning happens. Here are the parameters I always touch.

February 11, 20267 min read

Running Postgres on Kubernetes: Lessons From the Operators That Almost Worked

Postgres on Kubernetes is feasible now in a way it was not five years ago. The operators are mature, the storage is good enough, and the failure modes are tractable. Here is what to know.

February 10, 20265 min read

N+1 Queries in Postgres: The Bug ORMs Make Easy and the Fix That Sticks

N+1 is the most common ORM-induced performance bug. The query count tells the story; the application code makes it impossible to spot at review time.

February 9, 20266 min read

Prepared Statements in Postgres: When the Generic Plan Bites

Prepared statements skip the planning step on repeated execution. Sometimes that is a 5x speedup. Sometimes it is a 50x slowdown. Knowing the difference matters.

February 8, 20265 min read

Transactions Around HTTP Calls in Postgres: Don't

Wrapping a transaction around an external API call sounds careful and is actually one of the worst patterns in production database code.

February 7, 202613 min read

PostgreSQL Backup Strategies: Restores, WAL, and Test Drills

Backups matter only if the restore path is known. Choose logical or physical backups based on recovery goals, WAL history, and rehearsal discipline.

February 6, 20266 min read

Application-Side Retry Logic for Postgres: What to Retry, What Not To

Most application-side retry logic is wrong. It either retries everything (and corrupts data) or nothing (and surfaces transient failures to users). Here is the right framework.

February 5, 20266 min read

Batch Jobs Against Postgres: Production Traffic With Worse Manners

A batch job that worked fine in dev can saturate production. The fixes are not exotic — chunk size, lock duration, retry budget — but most teams skip them.

February 4, 20266 min read

Postgres as a Job Queue: How SKIP LOCKED Changed the Game

Using a Postgres table as a job queue used to be a recipe for contention. SKIP LOCKED makes it tractable. Here is the pattern that actually scales.