EDB is proud to be part of the vibrant open source community and we are committed to sharing our knowledge and expertise at open source events and conferences around the world.
On February 1 and 2, 2025, more than 8,000 open source enthusiasts will attend FOSDEM, the Free and Open Source Software Developers' Meeting in Brussels, Belgium. It’s a busy conference with 1121 speakers, 1073 events, and 79 tracks. EDB Vice President, Postgres Evangelist Bruce Momjian will be giving a talk on AI and databases in the FOSDEM main track.
Prior to the FOSDEM meeting, database developers, administrators, users, and open-source enthusiasts from around the globe will gather for FOSDEM PG Day 2025 on January 31st. As an extension to the regular PostgreSQL activities at FOSDEM, this PG day will cover a wide variety of PostgreSQL topics, including a talk on Incremental backup by EDB VP, Chief Architect, Database Servers Robert Haas, and a Lightning Talk from EDB Staff Software Development Engineer Gabriele Quaresima focused on CloudNativePG.
PostgreSQL Europe will also be hosting a PostgreSQL devroom during the main FOSDEM conference on Sunday, February 2nd, which will feature a talk on Logical Replication from EDB Solution Architect Boriss Mejias.
Plus we are proud to have several of our EDB colleagues attending the invitation-only PostgreSQL Developer Meeting, contributing their expertise in the discussion of new challenges, solutions, and development processes for PostgreSQL.
January 31st - February 2nd will be an exciting weekend to be in Brussels as the city will be full of open source enthusiasts connecting and sharing ideas about developers’ favorite database.
Keep reading for a preview of EDB’s talks during this exciting weekend of open source community collaboration.
Databases in the AI Trenches
EDB Vice President, Postgres Evangelist Bruce Momjian | FOSDEM (main track)
The use of artificial intelligence has exploded in recent years, with much anticipation about our future and how AI will shape the world we live in. Gartner estimates 39% of worldwide organizations will use AI this year. In this talk, EDB Vice President, Postgres Evangelist Bruce Momjian will explore the many of the advances that have fueled the AI explosion, including multi-dimensional vectors, text embeddings, semantic/vector search, transformers, generative AI, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). The talk includes semantic/vector search and rag examples. It finally covers how the valuable data stored in databases can be used to enhance AI usage.
Logical Replication Live Session - Keep on Streaming
EDB Solutions Architect Boriss Mejias | FOSDEM (Postgres Devroom)
Logical replication in PostgreSQL is great for multiple use cases such as major upgrades with nearly zero downtime, consolidation of multiple databases into a warehouse, and more recently, bi-directional replication for geo-redundancy, with the promise of an active-active architecture. All these possibilities are evidence that logical replication is far richer than physical replication. However, that richness comes with higher complexity and nuances that make it challenging.
In this presentation, EDB Solutions Architect Boriss Mejias will not only discuss in theory the nuances and challenges, but will also have a live session analyzing different scenarios, reviewing best and worst practices, breaking the replication, and fixing it, so that the publisher database keeps on streaming, keeping the beat.
Logical replication is complex, but as the Zen of Python says, “better complex than complicated”.
Incremental Backup
EDB VP, Chief Architect, Database Servers Robert Haas | FOSDEM PG Day
In this talk, EDB VP, Chief Architect, Database Servers Robert Haas will discuss the incremental backup feature that he developed for PostgreSQL 17. The talk will discuss how the feature determines what data has changed, and why the chosen approach was selected. Robert will then review in some detail how incremental backups can be taken and restored, and why things work as they do. It will briefly touch on use cases for the feature and possible future work in this area.
Five minutes by the CloudNativePG river
EDB Staff Software Development Engineer Gabriele Quaresima | Lightning Talk at FOSDEM PGDay
In this session, EDB Staff Software Development Engineer Gabriele Quaresima will give an informative and insightful introduction to key features and behaviors of CloudNativePG, the Kubernetes operator that covers the full lifecycle of a highly available PostgreSQL database cluster with a primary/standby architecture, using native streaming replication.
With only 5 minutes (the set duration of FOSDEM PGDay Lightning Talks) at his disposal, Gabriele will cover:
- The operator CRD
- Operand images and extensibility
- Deployment (helm, manifest application...)
- Most interesting features
This is a very timely presentation as CloudNativePG is getting a lot of buzz in the open source community, having just been officially accepted into the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Sandbox and counting more than 5.1K Github stars.
At EDB, we’re not just participants in the PostgreSQL community—we’re leaders, innovators, and collaborators. Through these talks, our experts are not only sharing their knowledge but also contributing to the collective advancement of PostgreSQL. From incremental backups and in-database AI to performance optimizations, we’re proud to push the boundaries of what PostgreSQL can achieve.