Over two days of presentations in June, participants at Postgres Vision 2021 explored the latest developments around PostgreSQL and the future of the enterprise database.

The event was fully covered by theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, through interviews and articles highlighting the significant role of Postgres in advancing the future of data. Here are five  key insights from the Postgres Vision 2021 event you may have missed. (* Disclosure below.)

1. Databases are ‘hot’ now because they can deliver more.

In his interview with theCUBE, EnterpriseDB Corp. Chief Executive Ed Boyajian succinctly captured the key reasons behind why databases are suddenly “hot” again. With its longevity over 25 years of enterprise use, Postgres has moved on from being merely a popular, general purpose database. Enterprises want a database that can do more.

For some vertical markets, databases still need to be systems of record, a single source of truth. Yet as applications and workloads continue to grow across all facets of the industry, the database has taken on additional use for systems of engagement on behalf of social media websites and systems of analysis where artificial intelligence increasingly drives critical business decisions.

This expansion of uses has brought the database into the enterprise spotlight and fueled the popularity of Postgres with developers.

“Our customers report using us across the whole landscape of application areas,” Boyajian said. “And I think that is one of Postgres’ hidden superpowers; it’s that ability to reach into each area of requirement on the workload side.”

2. EDB’s acquisition of 2ndQuadrant was a significant move in the Postgres world.

When EDB completed the acquisition of Postgres solutions and tools company 2ndQuandrant Inc. last year, it marked an important shift in the database landscape. With the addition of 2ndQuadrant, EDB became the largest provider of Postgres products and solutions.

In 2019, 2ndQuadrant became the first Kubernetes Certified Service Provider for PostgreSQL under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s certification program. 2ndQuandrant also provided consulting for bi-directional replication, or BDR, which has been called out by one developer as a “rising star” in the Postgres ecosystem.

BDR was PostgreSQL’s first open-source multi-master replication system to reach full production status. It made its mark through versatility. BDR was designed for allocation in different geographic clusters with node support in distributed databases.

For real-time payment software provider ACI Worldwide, BDR represents an important reason to work with Postgres and EDB.

“Our journey started with 2ndQuadrant and now EDB,” said Jeremy Wilmot, chief product officer of ACI Worldwide, during an interview with theCUBE. “We were specifically looking at one area of bidirectional replication, and we were wanting to support our solutions in the public cloud. That was going to enable us to replace multiple pieces of software from multiple vendors.”

3. Kubernetes is reshaping the database tools ecosystem.

If the point of moving to Kubernetes is to take advantage of the automation offered by the container orchestration tool, then it makes sense that developers will want to automate the databases they use as well. For years, database systems were the “last frontier” for Kubernetes, but that is changing fast.

Patroni, referenced several times in a conversation with Josh Berkus, Kubernetes community manager at Red Hat Inc., is one example of how this dynamic is emerging. Patroni is a cluster manager that customizes and automates Postgres for high availability. Berkus, who was one of the key developers for the Patroni open-source project and served on the Postgres development team for 13 years, views Patroni as a key resource in a high-availability, containerized database application stack using Postgres.

“What a lot of these have to do with is taking advantage of the automation,” Berkus said, in an interview during the Postgres  event. “You can obviously put Postgres with containers and play around. Patroni is the component for automating Postgres.”

4. Advances in Postgres are transforming the use of geospatial data.

A strength of Postgres is its ability to handle spatial data, and one of the key tools used to create spatial databases is PostGIS.

The open-source software was first released by Refractions Research in 2001, and it is built on top of Postgres. PostGIS has become a key tool for industries such as transportation and logistics because of its capabilities in geographic information systems.

Cloud and retail giant Alibaba relied on PostGIS to optimize its shipping systems during its Singles’ Day shopping holiday in China, which surpassed $74 billion in sales last year. The Helsinki Region Transport Authority relies on the technology to handle more than half of all public transportation in Finland.

“PostGIS is, I think, the most advanced system out there in databases,” said Marc Linster, chief technology officer at EDB, in an interview with theCUBE. “It can do absolutely reliable asset-compliant transactions.”

5. Postgres adoption is binding enterprise and open-source communities more closely together.

Enterprises are becoming more open-source ready, driven in large part by the growing influence of developers in shaping the direction of IT. The integration of new features in Postgres, such as replication for high availability, parallel query, and scalability, to a wider range of cores has given the database its enterprise chops.

In the past, synergy between enterprises and the open-source community was largely limited to core technology firms. Now, as databases such as Postgres rise in popularity, more industries are becoming part of the open-source landscape.

One notable example of this can be found in the case of the securities industry, traditionally one of the most reluctant to adopt open-source solutions. Borsa Italiana Group, Italy’s only stock exchange and an EDB customer, relies on Postgres to drive an infrastructure with the highest reliability and the lowest latency to handle millions of trading orders in a fraction of a second.

The reality of Postgres powering one of the key stock exchanges in Europe is testimony that open-source has found a seat at the global corporate table.

“I was at Red Hat before, and now here at EDB, and there’s a common thread that runs through those two experiences,” Boyajian said. “In both experiences, the companies are attached and prominent alongside a strong, independent open-source community. Companies and communities are intimately intertwined. They are one and the same.”

Be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Postgres Vision 2021. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Postgres Vision event. Neither EnterpriseDB Corp., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

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