Database School cover image

Database School

Heroku's glory days & Postgres vs the world, w/ Craig Kerstiens

Sep 24, 2024
Craig Kerstiens, an expert from Crunchy Data specializing in Postgres, dives into the rise and importance of Postgres, particularly during its glory days at Heroku. He shares insights on scaling databases and the innovative 'data clips' feature that bridges technical and non-technical teams. The conversation touches on the evolution of Postgres and its extension ecosystem, highlighting challenges like database sharding. Craig also discusses future trends and the unique strengths of Postgres compared to competitors like DuckDB.
01:02:46

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • Craig Kerstiens discusses Heroku's pivotal role in developing Postgres' popularity, emphasizing teamwork and innovative culture during its early adoption.
  • Postgres distinguishes itself through its extensibility and robust features like transactional DDL, gaining significant traction within the developer community.

Deep dives

Craig Kersteins' Journey with Postgres

Craig Kersteins has an extensive background in working with Postgres, spanning over 15 years, which began during his tenure at Heroku. He played a pivotal role in scaling Postgres support at Heroku, managing up to 1.5 million Postgres databases across their customer base. Following his time there, he shifted to Citus Data, dealing with significantly larger databases, and eventually contributed to Microsoft's Azure Postgres. Craig's perspective is shaped by his developer-focused approach to databases, distinguishing him from more traditional database professionals.

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