Federico Campoli

About the Speaker

• Tell us about yourself: career, family, passions

  My name is Federico Campoli, I’m Neapolitan and I live in Tuscany. Apart from PostgreSQL I love playing the jazz guitar (It’s 4 years now since I’ve started with my teacher) and cycling around the beautiful countryside of Mugello.

• What is your icebreaker for PostgreSQL events?

  I usually show my PostgreSQL tattoo.

• How do you prepare for an online presentation?

  I do the same as for an in person presentation. As a former actor I know that it’s very important to stay focused and ignore the presence of the audience. This way the mental flow will go smoothly and the presentation will not bore the audience.

• Which book are you reading right now?

  I’m currently reading Liege Killer by Christopher Hinz.

• What is your favorite hobby?

  Probably playing the guitar. But it may become a job shortly.

About the Talk

• What will your talk be about, exactly? Why this topic?

  The talk will explore an alternate possibility for configuring the filesystem on Linux. I hope that my talk will vindicate the infamous ZFS and shed new light on the possibilities for running PostgreSQL at scale.

• What is the audience for your talk?

  DBA and system administrator will find the test results interesting and hopefully they will consider ZFS as an option.

• What existing knowledge should the attendee have?

  I made the talk for a medium level audience as the time is short and it’s not possible to dig entirely into the options. However any knowledge on how linux works and the filesytems will help to understand better the configuration.

• Which other talk at this year’s conference would you like to watch?

  I’m very interested in Karen Jex’s talk about the database backup policy. Also Polina Bungina’s talk about the Hazards of logical decoding in PostgreSQL is something I want to watch for sure.

• How do you balance technical depth with engaging storytelling in your conference presentations?

  I usually try to maintain a storytelling style even when I present technical stuff. It seems the audience like this style.

About PostgreSQL

• What inspired you to work with PostgreSQL?

  It was a massive gamble. Back in 2006 my instinct told me to leave the safe haven of Oracle and jump to PostgreSQL even if it was still immature for the market. I believed so much in the project that in 2007 I created the first PGDay with the help of many friends.

• What is your favorite PostgreSQL feature?

  Difficult to decide amongst the many great features. Probably my favourite feature is the dependency system.

• What is the single thing that you think differentiates PostgreSQL most from other databases?

  The fantastic community is what differentiate PostgreSQL from the rest.

• What is your favorite PostgreSQL extension or tool? And why?

  pg_repack is my favourite extension. It’s a lifesaver allowing to compact the relations with minimal impact on the database.

• What advice would you give to someone starting their journey with PostgreSQL?

  Start with read the documentation and then the source code. Even if you are not a C developer (I’m not either) the code is clear and well commented. Also the readme files are incredibly exhaustive and give a very good insight of how PostgreSQL works.

  If in doubt don’t be shy and ask the community for clarification.

• What are your favorite resources for learning about PostgreSQL?

  The PostgreSQL source code.

• If you had a magic wand, what single thing would you change in PostgreSQL as it is today?

  I would add a certification endorsed independently by the PGDG. There is so much bogus experts nowadays and this may cause long term damage IMHO.

About POSETTE & Events

• Have you enjoyed previous POSETTE (formerly Citus Con) conferences, either as an attendee or as a speaker?

  Unfortunately I couldn’t focus on anything in the past years because of personal issues. I really look forward to contribute to POSETTE this year though.

• What motivated you to speak at this year’s POSETTE: An Event for Postgres?

  The fact it’s a virtual conference played a big role. I’m still on a tight budget because of “things” and being freelancer means I have no company paying for my travel.

• What other PostgreSQL events in 2024 are you excited about?

  I’d like to be at the PGConf EU but I’m not sure I could make it (see previous point ;) ).