#25 DoK Community: Deconstructing Postgres into a Cloud Native Platform // Álvaro Hernández

https://go.dok.community/slack Abstract of the talk…

Is deploying Postgres in Kubernetes just repackaging it into a container? Can’t Postgres leverage the wide range of Cloud-Native software and integrate well with K8s? Join this journey that will cover and demonstrate, with demos running on StackGres:

• How to structure Postgres into an init-less container, plus several sidecar containers for connection pooling, backups, agents, etc.
• Defining high level CRDs as the single API to interact with the Postgres operator.
• Using K8s RBAC for user authentication of a web UI management interface.
• Using Prometheus for monitoring; bundling a node, Postgres and PgBouncer exporters together.
• Proxying Postgres traffic through Envoy. Terminate Postgres SSL with an Envoy plugin, that also exports wire protocol metrics to Prometheus.
• Using Fluentbit to capture Postgres logs and forward them to Fluentd, which stores them on a centralized Postgres database.

Key take-aways from the talk…

• Understand how and why to "de-construct" Postgres into a cloud native application.
• Learn how to leverage K8s CRDs to interact with Postgres in Kubernetes, without being a
  Postgres expert.
• Understand the benefits of proxying Postgres traffic with the Envoy proxy and its Postgres
  filter.
• How to use FluentBit and Fluentd to capture and collect logs from Postgres pods and
  consolidate into a central location.
• Learn about the open source StackGres platform, a Postgres Distribution for Kubernetes.

The goal of this talk is to share with the Community all the knowledge and best practices
learned while integrating Postgres with the Kubernetes ecosystem. They stem from the
development of the open source StackGres (https://stackgres.io) Postgres platform. StackGres
followed instead a novel approach: re-analyze all Postgres architecture and find what
components and subsystems could be externalized to K8s ecosystem tools, and construct
sidecars for all the agents and related software, avoiding the use of init systems.

Bio…

Álvaro is a passionate database and software developer. He founded and works as the Founder & CEO of OnGres (https://ongres.com). He has been dedicated to PostgreSQL and R&D in databases for two decades.

An open source advocate and developer at heart, Álvaro is a well-known member of the PostgreSQL Community, to which he has contributed founding the non-profit Fundación PostgreSQL (https://postgresql.fund) and the Spanish PostgreSQL User Group.

You can find him frequently speaking at PostgreSQL, database, cloud, and Java conferences. Every year, Álvaro travels approximately three-four times around the globe—in 2020 (or now more likely 2021 due to COVID-19), he will hit the milestone of having delivered 100 tech talks.

AWS Data Hero (2019).