--- title: "pgvector 0.5 and Postgres 16 RC1 released" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 520 published_at: "2023-09-06" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/520" --- Plus AWS's plan to extend Postgres 15 support into the 2030s, and Postgres's fake 'vulnerability.' | #​520 — September 6, 2023 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/520) **👋 We're back from vacation.** If you didn't get an issue of Postgres Weekly recently, it's because I was away, but we should be good all the way through to Christmas now 😁 There's a _lot_ to cover from the past few weeks and it'll take a couple of issues to catch up, so let's go! __ _Peter Cooper and the Cooperpress team_ Together with [![pgAnalyze\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,e_trim,w_350,h_100/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:7/lhwcvgc1asd4fzaahty4.png)](https://pganalyze.com/ebooks/explain-slow-postgres-queries?utm_source=PostgresWeeklyPrimary09062023) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/yz5fhludoc40exl2p9qu.jpg)](https://jkatz05.com/post/postgres/pgvector-overview-0.5.0/) [pgvector 0.5 Released: The Highlights](https://jkatz05.com/post/postgres/pgvector-overview-0.5.0/) — [pgvector](https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector) is an extension that provides vector similarity search capabilities and is being increasingly used in LLM/ML use cases. v0.5 introduces a new index type (shown off in detail by Christopher Winslett in [HNSW Indexes with Postgres and pgvector](https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/hnsw-indexes-with-postgres-and-pgvector)), parallelization of ivfflat index builds, and improved performance of its distance functions. [Changelog](https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#050-2023-08-28) and [GitHub repo](https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector). Jonathan Katz [Postgres 16 Release Candidate 1 Released](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-16-rc1-released-2702/) — There’s not much to add beyond the recent betas, but the final release is _due next week_, and you can [peruse the draft release notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/16/release-16.html) for the complete roundup till then. PostgreSQL Global Development Group [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/4b5c8139.png)](https://pganalyze.com/ebooks/explain-slow-postgres-queries?utm_source=PostgresWeeklyPrimary09062023) [Finding the Root Cause of Slow Postgres Queries Using EXPLAIN](https://pganalyze.com/ebooks/explain-slow-postgres-queries?utm_source=PostgresWeeklyPrimary09062023) — In this in-depth guide you will learn our approach to using Postgres EXPLAIN to find and improve problematic query plans, how to analyze and improve these query plans, and how to use auto_explain to automatically start collecting EXPLAIN plans. pganalyze sponsor [Optimizing Autovacuum for High-Churn Tables](https://tembo.io/blog/optimizing-postgres-auto-vacuum/) — Due to Postgres’s data storage approach, an 'autovacuuming' process is necessary to clean up and optimize table storage. The more `UPDATE`s and `DELETE`s a table is subjected to, the more important this vacuuming process becomes, so tuning how it works can yield significant results. Adam Hendel [What’s New with Postgres at Microsoft in 2023](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-database-for-postgresql/what-s-new-with-postgres-at-microsoft-august-2023/ba-p/3914506) — Whether via Citus, Azure, or elsewhere, Microsoft has a significant presence in the Postgres world and maintains a variety of well known tools, extensions, and services. Claire does a great job of walking through the various things Microsoft has done in the Postgres space in the year so far. Claire Giordano (Microsoft) _IN BRIEF:_ - AWS is [introducing _Amazon RDS Extended Support_](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/introducing-amazon-rds-extended-support-for-amazon-aurora-postgresql-and-amazon-rds-for-postgresql-11/), a paid program offering security and bug fixes for up to three years past the end of standard support for older versions. This extends Postgres 11 support, for example, to the end of 2026, and Postgres 15 support into the 2030s. - 📗 [_High Performance PostgreSQL for Rails_](https://pragprog.com/titles/aapsql/high-performance-postgresql-for-rails/) by Andrew Atkinson is a book that's currently in beta and due for final release in October targeting Ruby and Rails developers who use Postgres. - [Now it's Postgres's turn to have a bogus CVE,](https://opensourcewatch.beehiiv.com/p/now-postgresqls-turn-bogus-cve) says Steven Vaughan-Nichols about one of a number of seemingly bogus vulnerability reports filed against popular open source projects recently. [CVE-2020-21469](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-21469) specifically, in this case. - Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL has [added support for the `h3-pg` extension,](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/09/amazon-rds-postgresql-h3-pg-geospatial-indexing/) a way to do hexagonal, hierarchical geospatial indexing and querying that [originated at Uber.](https://github.com/zachasme/h3-pg) - Amazon RDS now [supports PL/Rust in Postgres 13 and 14 deployments](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/08/amazon-rds-postgresql-pl-rust-version-13-14/) (it was already supported in Postgres 15). - To wrap up the RDS news, [Postgres 16 RC1 is now available in Amazon RDS _Database Preview Environment._](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/08/postgresql-16-release-candidate-1-amazon-rds-database-preview-environment/) - Joshua D. Drake [provides some much needed extra perspective](https://commandprompt.com/blog/an-act-of-kindness-for-the-postgresql-community/) on the ongoing trademark / legal dispute between _PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada_ and _Fundacion PostgreSQL._ We hope it gets resolved amicably soon. ▶[`UPDATE` Considered Harmful](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxMz-tyicgo) — _“It is a clickbait title,”_ says Jeremy, but it helps make the point that `UPDATE` isn’t all it seems and how assuming it _does_ merely ‘update’ data can lead to problems. (In reality, an `UPDATE` inserts new data and deletes the old data - or marks it as stale - rather than ‘updating’ anything at a physical level.) Bitemporality then also comes into play. Jeremy Taylor [[Blog\] Securing Your PostgreSQL Database](https://goteleport.com/blog/securing-postgres-postgresql/?utm_campaign=0906Cooperpress&utm_medium=partner&utm_source=postgres) Teleport | goteleport․com sponsor [Making Postgres Backups 100x Faster via EBS Snapshots and pgBackRest](https://www.timescale.com/blog/making-postgresql-backups-100x-faster-via-ebs-snapshots-and-pgbackrest/) — [pgBackrest](https://pgbackrest.org/) is a handy tool for handling backups, but it can get slow for large databases. Here’s how Timescale mitigated the problem by incorporating EBS snapshots. Godeke and Blackwood-Sewell (Timescale) [What’s New in Oracle to Postgres Migrations with Google DMS](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/databases/whats-new-in-oracle-to-postgresql-database-migrations-with-dms/) Google Cloud Blog Code and Tools [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/tnnnn8zaclwq8t2pncjx.jpg)](https://tembo.io/blog/introducing-pg-later/) [Introducing pg_later: Asynchronous Queries for Postgres](https://tembo.io/blog/introducing-pg-later/) — Execute SQL now and get the results later. Built atop the [pgmq](https://github.com/tembo-io/pgmq) Postgres message queue extension. [GitHub repo.](https://github.com/tembo-io/pg_later) Adam Hendel [pg_ivm 1.6: Incremental View Maintenance Extension](https://github.com/sraoss/pg_ivm/) — IVM can update materialized views more efficiently than recomputation when only small parts of the view are changed. [v1.6](https://github.com/sraoss/pg_ivm/releases/tag/v1.6) adds support for the `EXISTS` clause. SRA OSS LLC - [FerretDB 1.9](https://blog.ferretdb.io/new-ferretdb-release-v190/) – It's like MongoDB in the front, but with Postgres (or, optionally, SQLite) in the back. - [pg_cron 1.6](https://github.com/citusdata/pg_cron) – Run periodic jobs in Postgres. - [pgxmock 2.12](https://github.com/pashagolub/pgxmock) ↳ [pgx](https://github.com/jackc/pgx) mock driver to test DB interactions in Go. - [pg-anonymizer 0.8](https://github.com/rap2hpoutre/pg-anonymizer) ↳ Dump anonymized data from Postgres. - [Nano ID for PostgreSQL 2.0](https://github.com/viascom/nanoid-postgres/releases/tag/2.0.0) ↳ Nano ID generation extension. - [ruby-pg 1.5.4](https://github.com/ged/ruby-pg) – Ruby Postgres client library. **Got a new email?** You can [change your address here](https://postgresweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*). --- **Bored of us?** [Click here to stop getting Postgres Weekly](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*). --- **Got a link for us?** Reply and tell us. 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