--- title: "PostgreSQL tools for the visually inclined" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 295 published_at: "2019-03-06" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/295" --- The latest Postgres news, articles, tools, and projects. #295 — March 6, 2019 [Read on the Web](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/295) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/xljhbftdd3kyllwfmn1x.jpg)](https://rob.conery.io/2019/03/04/postgresql-tools-for-the-visually-inclined/) [PostgreSQL Tools for the Visually Inclined](https://rob.conery.io/2019/03/04/postgresql-tools-for-the-visually-inclined/) — In response to a SQL Server DBA [criticizing Postgres’s tooling](https://www.softwareandbooz.com/postgresql-for-a-sql-server-dba-the-tooling-stinks/), Rob Conery responds with, essentially, a look at how the Postgres (and Unix) culture around tooling is different and how that’s ultimately a good thing. Rob Conery [A Look at pgCenter's Wait Events Profiler](https://blog.dataegret.com/2019/03/pgcenters-wait-event-profiler.html) — [pgCenter](https://github.com/lesovsky/pgcenter) is a popular tool for monitoring and troubleshooting Postgres via stats. The recent 0.6 release added support for profiling _wait events_ (basically when Postgres is waiting for things to happen, such as IO or obtaining a lock). Alexey Lesovsky [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/2100ff85.jpg)](https://www.quest.com/FY2019_Q4_AMER_DBPerf_CooperPress_FoglightPostgres_Jan_eNewsletter_ADV) [Diagnose & Resolve Performance Across Your PostgreSQL Environment](https://www.quest.com/FY2019_Q4_AMER_DBPerf_CooperPress_FoglightPostgres_Jan_eNewsletter_ADV) — Manage the health of your infrastructure. Intuitive web-based dashboards alert you to issues that might affect performance or availability, and a clear enterprise-wide view helps you optimize your entire PostgreSQL environment. [Download your free trial](https://www.quest.com/FY2019_Q4_AMER_DBPerf_CooperPress_FoglightPostgres_Jan_eNewsletter_ADV). Quest Software sponsor [PostgreSQL Project to Participate in Google Summer of Code 2019](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/1925/) — GSoC is a program in which Google awards stipends to university students who work on certain open source projects during the summer - of which Postgres is one. [Learn more here](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/GSoC) if you want to take part. PostgreSQL Global Development Group [How to Use `JOIN LATERAL` and Why You Would Want To](https://blog.2ndquadrant.com/join-lateral/) Elein Mustain [Using Parallelism for Queries from PL/pgSQL Functions in Postgres 10+](https://rafiasabih.blogspot.com/2019/03/using-parallelism-for-queries-from-pl.html) — While parallel queries were introduced in 9.6, it wasn’t until Postgres 10 that they could be used from PL functions. Rafia Sabih [I Fought the WAL, and the WAL Won: Why `hot_standby_feedback` Can Be Misleading](http://richyen.com/replication/postgres/hot_standby_feedback/2019/03/05/i_fought_the_wal.html) Richard Yen [eBook: How to Get a 3x Performance Improvement on Your Postgres Database](https://pganalyze.com/ebooks/optimizing-postgres-query-performance?utm_source=PostgresWeeklySecondary) — The pganalyze team shares their best practices, learned over the last few years by helping companies like Atlassian optimize their Postgres databases. pganalyze sponsor [How to Setup Windows Active Directory with Postgres GSSAPI Kerberos Authentication](https://info.crunchydata.com/blog/windows-active-directory-postgresql-gssapi-kerberos-authentication) — This is quite niche, but if you need to do it, these pointers will help. Stephen Frost [How ShiftLeft Uses PostgreSQL Extension TimescaleDB](http://highscalability.com/blog/2018/12/5/how-shiftleft-uses-postgresql-extension-timescaledb.html) — [TimescaleDB](https://www.timescale.com/) is an extension for Postgres that helps with time-series data. Here you can see how ShiftLeft leverages it for their metrics and vulnerability event data. High Scalability [A Tool to Make PostgreSQL's `EXPLAIN ANALYZE` More Readable](https://explain.depesz.com/) — A tool that lets you paste in the result of `EXPLAIN ANALYZE` queries and then see a more easily understandable version. Hubert depesz Lubaczewski supported by [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/v1549285104/cdttwslojuv9zso9nswk.png)](https://www.datadoghq.com/postgres-monitoring/?utm_source=Advertisement&utm_medium=CooperPress&utm_campaign=CooperPress-PostgresWeeklyT) 💡 Tip of the Week How to get a better Postgres config than the default settings If you're not using a managed database or you don't have a sysadmin working with you, there's a chance you're using Postgres with its default memory and cache settings. These are mostly fine, but with a few tweaks Postgres can take more advantage of its environment. Reading [the official docs for the settings](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.6/runtime-config-resource.html#RUNTIME-CONFIG-RESOURCE-MEMORY) will get you a long way, but it makes for lengthy bedtime reading! Thankfully, online configuration generators exist that can provide suggested settings better than the defaults, and it only takes a minute to do. First up is [pgtune](https://pgtune.leopard.in.ua/). Put in your server's OS, memory, disk type, and answer a few other questions to get the main settings suggested to you. [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/ylbj5dq1jdwwrwxhhejz.jpg)](https://pgtune.leopard.in.ua/) Second is [pgconfig.org](https://www.pgconfig.org/). This tool was heavily inspired by pgtune but has some neat extras, such as being able to see the different settings for different types of workload side by side. [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/xaenaqbht3yo9pbudtyq.jpg)](https://www.pgconfig.org/) The _Tip of the Week_ is sponsored by [Datadog](https://www.datadoghq.com/postgres-monitoring/?utm_source=Advertisement&utm_medium=CooperPress&utm_campaign=CooperPress-PostgresWeeklyT), a cloud monitoring platform for PostgreSQL infrastructure, distributed tracing and logging. 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