Articles by Shiv Iyer

About Shiv Iyer

Open Source Database Systems Engineer with a deep understanding of Optimizer Internals, Performance Engineering, Scalability and Data SRE. Shiv currently is the Founder, Investor, Board Member and CEO of multiple Database Systems Infrastructure Operations companies in the Transaction Processing Computing and ColumnStores ecosystem. He is also a frequent speaker in open source software conferences globally.

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PostgreSQL 15 Maintenance Operations: Controlling Automatic Database Maintenance

How to control automatic database maintenance operations in PostgreSQL 15? In PostgreSQL 15, automatic database maintenance is controlled by several configuration parameters. Here are a few examples: maintenance_work_mem – this parameter controls the amount of […]

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PostgreSQL Transaction Model MVCC: How It Is Implemented

How is the transaction model implemented in PostgreSQL? In PostgreSQL, transactions are implemented using the Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC) model. This means that each transaction is given a snapshot of the database at the start […]

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PostgreSQL Queries Blocked: How to Check Active vs Blocked Queries

How to check which queries are active or blocked in PostgreSQL? You can use the pg_stat_activity view in PostgreSQL to check which queries are currently active or blocked. This view provides information about each running […]

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PostgreSQL FOR UPDATE MODE Queries: How Locking Works

How PostgreSQL Locking works with FOR UPDATE MODE queries? In PostgreSQL, when a query is executed with the FOR UPDATE mode, it places a lock on the selected rows. This lock prevents any other queries […]

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How to handle NULL values in PostgreSQL

How to handle NULL values in PostgreSQL IS NULL: This operator is used to check if a column or expression is NULL. Example: SELECT * FROM table WHERE column_name IS NULL; IS NOT NULL: This […]

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PostgreSQL Locks and Deadlocks: Understanding Them

Understanding locks and deadlocks in PostgreSQL Locks in PostgreSQL are used to ensure that concurrent transactions do not interfere with each other. When a transaction modifies a piece of data, it will take out an [...]

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How to use pre-defined inspections in eBPF for troubleshooting Performance

How to use pre-defined inspections in eBPF for troubleshooting Performance eBPF (extended Berkeley Packet Filter) is a powerful feature in Linux that allows for the execution of custom programs in the kernel space. This can [...]

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PostgreSQL Sparse Index: How to Use It in PostgreSQL 15

How to use Sparse Index in PostgreSQL 15? Sparse indexes are used in PostgreSQL when the table contains many null or empty values in the indexed column. These indexes can greatly reduce the size of [...]

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PostgreSQL I/O Cache: How It Influences Performance

How I/O cache influence PostgreSQL performance? I/O cache plays an important role in PostgreSQL performance as it can greatly reduce the number of disk I/O operations that need to be performed. The PostgreSQL server uses [...]

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Inspecting PostgreSQL Locks

Inspecting PostgreSQL Locks Inspecting PostgreSQL locks can be done using the pg_locks view in the system catalog. This view displays information about all currently held and awaited locks. The columns in this view include the [...]

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