Improve your PostgreSQL skills by Luca Ferrari

1. Course Introduction

PostgreSQL is a very sophisticated Open Source relational database, that can be used in many
enterprise level scenarios thanks to its robustness and safety with regard to data. PostgreSQL is an
Open Source database, and is developed by a community of experts that guarantee its stability and
safety, as well as implement SQL-standard adherent features that range from relational database
transaction, to crash recovery, replication and even NO-SQL features like support to JSON and
hash-like structures.
While PostgreSQL documentation is very rich and complete, it is important to get an idea of the
capabilities this enterprise level database can provide to both database administrators and
application developers, supporting therefore the adoption of the DevOps paradigm too.
The “Improve you PostgreSQL Skills” course will provide readers with practical material to try and
understand main PostgreSQL features including:
• server side programming (stored procedures, triggers);
• dynamic and materialized views;
• rules and the query rewriting system;
• user and group management, as well as permission management;
• common-table-expressions (CTEs) and Window Functions;
• indexes, performances and concurrency;
• replication and point-in-time-recovery.
Each module will concentrate on a very limited set of concepts in order to let readers to better
undertsand and practice on each subject. Each module will be completed by practical examples, as
well as final questions and exercises meant to test the understanding of readers.