---
title: "Locks, backups, and parallelism: Keeping an eye on Postgres"
publication: "Postgres Weekly"
issue: 344
published_at: "2020-02-26"
canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/344"
---

This week's Postgres news, views, and tools.       

#344 — February 26, 2020 

[Read on the Web](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/344)   

Postgres Weekly 

[![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/v1582661449/n83rk36tjevqygoeh1kp.png)](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/shared_buffers-looking-into-the-postgresql-i-o-cache/)   

[`shared_buffers`: Looking Into Postgres's I/O Cache](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/shared_buffers-looking-into-the-postgresql-i-o-cache/) — Simply, the `shared_buffers` config setting lets you specify how much memory is used for caching data, but the default value of 128 megabytes is relatively low (so it’s common to [increase this value](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-resource.html#GUC-SHARED-BUFFERS)). Here’s a look at what the cache does and contains. 

Hans-Jürgen Schönig   

[An Eye on the Locks of PostgreSQL](https://www.highgo.ca/2020/02/21/have-an-eye-on-locks-of-postgresql/) — Within database systems, locks prevent simultaneous access (or manipulation) of data that’s already in use or being changed. Postgres supports numerous _types_ of lock, like table locks, row locks, transaction locks, and more. This post takes a deeper look at them. 

Movead Li   [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/3bf7ba45.png)](https://www.datadoghq.com/dg/monitor/postgresql-benefits/?utm_source=Advertisement&utm_medium=CooperPress&utm_campaign=CooperPress-PostgresWeeklyBenefitsP) 

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Datadog sponsor   

[On the Automated Testing of Postgres Backups](https://pgdash.io/blog/testing-postgres-backups.html) — _Having_ backups is one thing, but you also need to ensure they’re viable and ready to actually use. 

RapidLoop   

[Postgres Parallelism, What Next?](http://amitkapila16.blogspot.com/2020/02/this-blog-post-is-about-journey-of.html) — A brief look at the journey of parallelism in PostgreSQL from 9.6 until now. 

Amit Kapila   

[Preparing Your Postgres Data for Scale-Out](https://dev.to/heroku/preparing-your-postgres-data-for-scale-out-km) — As your app’s popularity grows, how should you prepare for the growth in usage of your Postgres instance? 

Matthew Revell   

▶[Digging into Postgres at a Low Level: Stay Curious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTIvco34REM) — A ~40 minute talk from last year that, sadly, we forgot to include at the time. It goes _deep_ into exploring how to use tools like strace and gdb to troubleshoot intricate performance issues. Most of you will never need to do these things, but it’s useful to know it’s _possible_. 

Dmitrii Dolgov   

[Why I’m Not A Fan of the `uuid` Datatype](https://www.depesz.com/2020/02/19/why-im-not-fan-of-uuid-datatype/) — UUIDs have both pros and cons over standard sequential keys. This post solely focuses on performance, but the comments help balance things out. 

Hubert depesz Lubaczewski   

[Connecting to Azure PostgreSQL with libpq 12 in a Kerberos Environment](https://blog.hagander.net/connecting-to-azure-postgresql-with-libpq-12-in-a-kerberos-environment-245/) 

Magnus Hagander   

[Faster CI/CD for All Your Software Projects Using Buildkite](https://buildkite.com/?pk_campaign=pgweekly-260220&pk_source=cp-pgweekly&pk_medium=newsletter) — See how Shopify scaled from 300 to 1500 engineers while keeping their build times under 5 minutes. 

Buildkite sponsor   

[PostGIS 3.0.1: Geospatial Objects for Postgres](http://postgis.net/2020/02/20/postgis-3.0.1/) — It might only be a x.0.1 release, but it’s the first after PostGIS’s move to `git` and it also supports the current edge Postgres 13 builds if you need that. 

PostGIS Developers   

[rails-pg-extras: Postgres Database Insights for Ruby and Rails](https://github.com/pawurb/rails-pg-extras) — Ruby on Rails developer? This plugin lets you get quick info about locks, index usage, buffer cache hit ratios, vacuum stats and more. There’s a [pure Ruby (non Rails) version](https://github.com/pawurb/ruby-pg-extras) too. 

Paweł Urbanek     

🗓**Upcoming Events** 

- [Postgres Conference 2020](https://postgresconf.org/conferences/2020) (March 23-27 in New York, United States) — A broad and large scale (indeed, the largest, they say) Postgres event.
- [Nordic PgDay 2020](https://2020.nordicpgday.org/) (March 24 in Helsinki, Finland)
- [pgDay Paris 2020](https://2020.pgday.paris/#%2319) (March 26 in Paris, France)
- [Swiss PGDay 2020](http://www.pgday.ch/2020/) (June 18-19 in Switzerland) — A two track conference (one in English, one in German) aimed at the entire Postgres community.
- [Postgres Ibiza 2020](https://pgibz.io/) (June 25-26 in Ibiza, Spain) — A two day conference on the sunny island of Ibiza in the Mediterranean. I recall this one getting some great trip reports last year! 

Running a Postgres related event that's beyond the scale of a small local meetup or user group? Let us know (_just hit reply_) and we can include it here in future issues.          

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