--- title: "Citus becomes 'Hyperscale' on Azure" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 304 published_at: "2019-05-08" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/304" --- The latest Postgres news, articles, tools, and projects. #304 — May 8, 2019 [Read on the Web](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/304) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/attbh6ihgai6ueh9hfsn.jpg)](https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/05/06/introducing-pg_auto_failover-postgresql-open-source-extension-automated-failover-high-availability/) [`pg_auto_failover`: Automated Failover and High-availability in Postgres](https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/05/06/introducing-pg_auto_failover-postgresql-open-source-extension-automated-failover-high-availability/) — A new open source extension courtesy of Microsoft’s acquisition of Citus Data. [pg_auto_failover](https://github.com/citusdata/pg_auto_failover) aims to provide simple, automated failover built on streaming replication, with no external dependencies. Lukas Fittl (Microsoft) [Introducing Hyperscale (Citus) on Azure Database for PostgreSQL](https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2019/05/06/introducing-hyperscale-citus-on-azure-database-for-postgres/) — Now in preview on Microsoft Azure, Hyperscale (Citus) scales out data across multiple physical nodes, with the underlying data being sharded into much smaller bits. This sort of offering is essentially the key reason Microsoft acquired Citus Data recently. Citus Data [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/69ff4959.png)](https://www.strongdm.com/product/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019-04-24%20-%20%5BUSA%5D%20-%20%5BSchD%5D%20-%20%5BSDM%5D%20-%20%5BENT%5D%20-%20PGW) [If Engineers Need Access, You Need strongDM](https://www.strongdm.com/product/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019-04-24%20-%20%5BUSA%5D%20-%20%5BSchD%5D%20-%20%5BSDM%5D%20-%20%5BENT%5D%20-%20PGW) — strongDM works with everything in your stack. Seriously. Any database. Any server. Every environment. [Learn more](https://www.strongdm.com/product/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019-04-24%20-%20%5BUSA%5D%20-%20%5BSchD%5D%20-%20%5BSDM%5D%20-%20%5BENT%5D%20-%20PGW). strongDM sponsor [PostgreSQL Participating in Google Season of Docs 2019 (and Summer of Code)](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/1938/) — _Season of Docs_ is a new Google project to encourage technical writers and open source projects to work together towards improving their docs. The writers get paid [a stipend](https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/docs/tech-writer-stipends) for three months of collaboration. Postgres is also taking part in the annual [Google Summer of Code too](https://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/974-Google-Summer-of-Code-2019-PostgreSQL-participates-with-5-projects.html) if you or anyone you know is a student. PostgreSQL Global Development Group [TimescaleDB 1.3 Released: The Postgres-Based Time-Series SQL Database](https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb/releases/tag/1.3.0) — If you’ve still not played with [TimescaleDB](https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb), it’s a Postgres extension that turns Postgres into a fast time-series database. 1.3 introduces support for _continuous aggregates_ which can calculate the results of a query in the background and materialize the results bringing it somewhat closer to [PipelineDB](https://www.pipelinedb.com/) which has focused on this sort of use case for a while. Timescale [Contributing to Postgres](https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2019/01/15/contributing-to-postgres/?utm_source=PG_Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sponsor_blog) — If you’re looking to contribute to Postgres, here are a few helpful tips we’ve compiled. CITUS DATA, A MICROSOFT COMPANY sponsor [Implementing A 1-to-1 Relationship in Postgres (for Real)](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/1-to-1-relationship-in-postgresql-for-real/) — Forgot those tricks with UNIQUE constraints, here’s how to do it with DEFERRABLE foreign keys. Pavlo Golub [Using `CREATE USER` with Caution](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/postgresql-using-create-user-with-caution/) — Having a distinction between _users_ and _roles_ in Postgres is essential for good management of a database. Hans-Jürgen Schönig [How to Use pgBackRest to Backup Postgres (and TimescaleDB)](https://severalnines.com/blog/how-use-pgbackrest-backup-postgresql-and-timescaledb) Sebastian Insausti [How to Identify Slow Queries](https://dev.to/pythonmeister/how-to-identify-slow-queries-in-postgresql-4igk) — We did a tip in [issue 301](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/301) about this but it goes a step further showing how the `pg_stat_statements` extension can be used for looking at query execution statistics. Stefan Sonnenberg-Carstens [Postgres Performance on a Raspberry Pi](https://blog.rustprooflabs.com/2019/04/postgrseql-pgbench-raspberry-pi) — OK, you’re probably not going to be using Raspberry Pis to host your production database, but as a tinkerer myself, I enjoyed seeing someone go through this exercise. Ryan Lambert [Having Lunch with PostgreSQL, MongoDB and JSON](https://www.ongres.com/blog/having-lunch-with-postgresql-mongodb-json/) — A comparison of JSON handling in PostgreSQL and MongoDB, ultimately favoring Postgres. Álvaro Hernández 🏖 Do you have a tip of the week for us? The Postgres _Tip of the Week_ is taking a brief vacation this week, but will be back next week. If you have any suggestions or tips to submit, [we're open to submissions here](https://cooperpress.typeform.com/to/bTSq7v) and we pay up to $100 for any tip we use :-) 🗓 Upcoming Postgres Events - [PGDay.IT 2019](https://2019.pgday.it/en/) (May 16-17 in Bologna, Italy) - [PGDay Belgium 2019](http://pgconf.be/) (May 17 in Leuven, Belgium) — Registration has just opened. - [PGCon 2019](https://www.pgcon.org/2019/) (May 28-31 in Ottawa, Canada) — An annual conference for users and developers to meet and discuss all things Postgres. - [PostgreSQL Ibiza](https://www.pgibz.io/index.html) (Jun 19-21 on Ibiza) — This Postgres conference taking place on Spain's famous _party island_ promises you both "Postgres on the beach" while still having talks and training in a pretty neat looking venue. - [Postgres Vision 2019](https://postgresvision.com/) (June 24-26 in Boston, MA) Curated by [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/) and [Craig Kerstiens](https://twitter.com/craigkerstiens). 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