PostgreSQL Munich Meetup January 2025

This was our first, inagural event, and what a success it was! Up front, we would like to extend our appreciation to Amazon Web Services (AWS), who generously hosted and sponsored this event!

It’s also important to extend a special thanks to the individuals who helped make this event possible:

• Daria Aleshkova – for her support as co-organizer and for coordinating the venue; it wouldn’t have been possible without her.

• Ludwig Adam – for his support as co-organizer.

• Valeria Kaplan – for her help in orchestrating the creation of this Meetup Group.

• Andreas Scherbaum – for his incredible mentorship and help in orchestrating the creation of this Meetup Group.

• Floor Drees – for her incredible mentorship.

• Aychin Gasimov – for his role as speaker and technical support.

• Peter Farkas – for his role as speaker.

Contents

• Initial thoughts
• Aychin Gasimov - What’s new in PostgreSQL 17
• Peter Farkas: FerretDB 2.0, and a step towards a new open standard for Document Databases
• Getting involved
• Closing thoughts

Initial thoughts

57 RSVP – 30 actual attendees (52.6%, not bad at all!)

Going into this event, I tried to be conscious about finding the balance with a few points: - keeping this a low-key meetup versus a more professional event; - socializing and networking versus hosting and administration.

Looking back, I feel as though a nice harmony was found, though I include my thoughts on improvement within the closing thoughts.

With regards to the speakers, I personally loved that we experienced two sides of a spectrum; on one side we learned about Postgres internals, while on the other side, more of an ecosystem-wide conversation.

The audience was very engaged, and comprised a mixture of professionals and those much newer to Postgres.

I really feel that success in life can be distilled down to one word: exposure.

Aychin Gasimov

• Talk title: What’s new in PostgreSQL 17
• Speaker affiliation: AWS, Senior Partner Solutions Architect
• Slides for this presentation

Aychin gave a nice overview of the new features in the major release 17 of Postgres. I personally found some of the points on event triggers to be surprising. Specifically, as I understand it, that login event triggers didn’t exist prior to this major release! Here are the official release notes if you’re interested in learning more.

Peter Farkas

• Talk title: FerretDB 2.0, and a step towards a new open standard for Document Databases
• Speaker affiliation: FerretDB, CEO
• Slides for this presentation

Peter closed the evening with a nice history of SQL and the founding of FerretDB. Their central thesis, as I understand it, is that Postgres (free and open source) can be just as performant in document-oriented operations as proprietary options. From there, he transitioned into the exciting release of FerretDB 2.0, which I found particularly interesting, as I was hands-on with v1.

Getting involved

PostgreSQL Meetup Munich is always looking for speakers and venues.

If you or a friend are interested in speaking on a Postgres-related subject, do consider reaching out! Moreover, if your company is interested in hosting an event, please contact a member of the Organizational Team.

A Meetup event can be a great opportunity to:

• practice a talk in front of a smaller group, leading up to a conference

• hear community feedback

• share a unique story or perspective

Closing thoughts

This was a great first event and I’m really looking forward to the next one!

Reflections for next time:

• Include more details on directions to the venue, including parking, for those who arrive by car.
• Create more Meetup-group specific social media accounts to consider those who might prefer different platforms.
• Increase organization related to event promotion.

Stay in touch

If you’d like to have a conversation, consider reaching out.

My name is Evan Stanton and I’m always happy to connect.