Postgres Gets the Business

I just returned from attending PGConf NYC. They had 259 participants, more than double last year's total. The conference was in a hotel near Wall Street.

While I have been to many Postgres user conferences, this felt like my first corporate Postgres conference. Presenters from multinational banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley explained how and why they use Postgres in their organizations. These are trend-setting organizations, and their public embrace of Postgres will have lasting benefits.

In fact, one hallway discussion was how to enable large organizations like these, particularly those with significant legal and regulatory requirements, to work with the Postgres community. Some companies have employees post from non-company email accounts like Gmail, while others contract with consulting companies to work with the Postgres community on their behalf. Unfortunately, neither of these approaches have the companies working with the community openly. There were also many requests for improved auditing.

Another business-oriented aspect of the conferences was a dedicated security track. As part of that, Denish Patel's PCI Compliance talk (slides) dispelled much of the confusion around PCI compliance.

I was able to present a new talk at the conference, Making Postgres Central in Your Data Center. It explains how Postgres is uniquely positioned to be a central data broker.

For me, this conference was a clear sign of significant Postgres growth in the months ahead.