Category: Administration

Radim Marek enumerates a list:

Part one made the core case: pg_stat_statements counts, it doesn’t record. It walked through how the queryid jumble fragments one logical query into many rows, how the first-seen text freezes your per-request tags, and how the averages bury the p99 that actually pages you. All of that was about data the extension has and distorts.

This part is about the rest: the entries it silently throws away, the query text that can vanish all at once, the plans and replicas it never records, and the knobs that bite. It ends where part one started, with the question the whole investigation was really about: is this the query store Postgres is missing, or just the floor you’d build one on?

Click through for those limitations.

Brent Ozar recommends some actions:

You were minding your own business, and all of a sudden it happened.

You glanced at file sizes one day, and your eyes got big. The numbers got a little large while you weren’t looking. This is a great time to stop and think about a few changes to the way you’re managing this database.

These are some good recommendations on the whole. 1TB isn’t a magic number, but it’s a pretty decent dividing line.

Deborah Melkin shares some lessons from working with Change Data Capture:

This has definitely been something that is I’ve had some experience with recently. It inspired my “Change Tracking in SQL Server 2025: Exploring Change Event Streaming vs CDC” session that I presented at SQLCON 26. We had been having problems troubleshooting various issues around Change Data Capture (CDC) and someone suggested that I take look at Change Event Streaming, which is new for SQL Server 2025. One of the great things about putting together sessions like this is that I was able to create a very simple POC to understand it all works. It was also helpful for me to understand some key takeaways with both of these.

The Change Event Streaming lessons are fairly limited (for good reason) but Deb shares some nice tips on working with CDC.

Christophe Pettus shares some advice:

• Wind your watch.

No one has a watch that winds anymore, but the point is: take a deep breath. Give yourself a minute, or two, or five to gather data. A too-fast response is the main way a problem becomes a disaster.

Click through for all seven of them. I fully agree with doing drills. If you don’t practice in the easy times, you probably won’t respond well in the harder times. Also, I recommend having the process written down on a one-pager that everyone has a copy of. This should include the most important details around emergency response: how to escalate, what information to start capturing early on, etc.