Sam Lambert, CEO of PlanetScale and ex-technical leader at GitHub and Facebook, dives into the strategic shift from MySQL to Postgres. He discusses technical differences between MySQL and Postgres, emphasizing the cultural impact this change has had within PlanetScale. Sam shares insights on why developer vibes and control for startups drove the move and the challenges faced in integrating sharding with Postgres. Plus, stick around for a special surprise at the end!
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insights INSIGHT
How PlanetScale Scales MySQL
PlanetScale built extreme-scale MySQL by combining Vitess with a Kubernetes operator and orchestration layers.
That stack lets one connection string map to thousands of machines with automated failover and rolling upgrades.
question_answer ANECDOTE
TTL Every Node For Safe Rollouts
PlanetScale enforces a 29-day TTL on nodes and routinely kills and replaces them to roll upgrades.
The operator sequences replica replacements and planned reparenting so the cluster never goes offline during upgrades.
insights INSIGHT
Vitess Provides The Single-DB Facade
Vitess parses MySQL protocol and rewrites queries to distribute and aggregate across shards.
It makes many shards appear as one database to applications by planning and pushing queries to the correct shards.
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Sam Lambert, my former boss at PlanetScale, talks to me about PlanetScale moving from a MySQL company to now also having a Postgres offering. Sam shares why PlanetScale decided to move to Postgres, how MySQL and Postgres are different at a technical level, and how the change has impacted the company culture. Stay to the end for a special surprise!
PlanetScale Metal Episode: https://youtu.be/3r9PsVwGkg4 Join the waitlist to be notified of the MySQL for Developers release on Database School: https://databaseschool.com/mysql
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Chapters: 00:00 - Inaugural episode on this channel 01:46 - Introducing Sam Lambert and his background 03:04 - How PlanetScale built on MySQL and Vitess 06:10 - Explaining the layers of PlanetScale’s architecture 09:57 - Node lifecycles, failover, and operational discipline 12:02 - How Vitess makes sharding work 14:21 - PlanetScale’s edge network and resharding 19:02 - Why downtime is unacceptable at scale 20:04 - From Metal to Postgres: the decision process 23:06 - Why Postgres vibes matter for startups 27:04 - How PlanetScale adapted its stack for Postgres 34:38 - Entering the Postgres ecosystem and extensions 41:02 - Permissions, security, and reliability trade-offs 45:04 - Building Ni: a Vitess-style system for Postgres 53:33 - Why PlanetScale insists on control for reliability 1:02:05 - Competing in the broader Postgres landscape 1:08:33 - Why PlanetScale stays “just a database” 1:12:33 - What GA means for Postgres at PlanetScale 1:17:43 - Call to action for new Postgres users 1:18:49 - Surprise! 1:22:21 - Wrap-up and where to find Sam
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