Taras Kloba

About the Talk

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

  My talk will focus on our recent success at the TIDE NATO Hackathon 2024, where my team developed a mobile application for identifying equivalent medications. This app allows soldiers participating in international military operations to seamlessly exchange medications that are manufactured in different countries under various product names but are identical substitutes. At the core of our solution is the search functionality built on PostgreSQL. I believe this is an exciting experience to share with the audience, demonstrating a practical application of PostgreSQL that enabled us to win the challenge and earn the Grand Prix award.

About PostgreSQL

• What inspired you to work with PostgreSQL?

  What inspired me to work with PostgreSQL is the incredible community. At international conferences, I've met many fascinating individuals, and now I have contacts in almost every country. I can rely on this community for help and am equally ready to assist others. The community has also developed excellent documentation, which is rare among popular open-source databases. Additionally, the powerful mailing list service provides qualified help from global experts. I'm proud to be part of this community. I was particularly delighted to organize meetings for PostgreSQL Ukraine. Although we've paused our gatherings for now, I hope we'll resume and someday host PgConf.EU in Lviv or Kyiv, showcasing Ukraine to this wonderful community.

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

  For me, the key differentiator of PostgreSQL is its extensibility and the continuous development of new extensions, which often become part of the core functionality after thorough validation.

  As evidence of this, I believe PostgreSQL has a promising future and is poised to become the number one database for AI workloads. PostgreSQL already supports vector data types and powerful indexes for handling this data. We know that for AI applications, having tools for creating embeddings and efficiently working with vectors is crucial.

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

  Currently, I work extensively with prototyping applications, and the core data and primary functionality remain in PostgreSQL. My favorite extensions right now are azure_ai and azure_local_ai. azure_ai allows for easy creation of embeddings directly in the database, which is incredibly useful. A real game-changer for me is azure_local_ai, enabling the use of large language models (LLMs) on the same machine as the database. This setup ensures predictable costs and minimal latency when generating embeddings.

  Another favorite has always been PostgREST, but now similar functionality is available directly in Azure through Data API Builder. Together, these tools enable the creation of AI applications and their backends directly in the database. For someone who loves working with SQL, this is a fantastic opportunity and significantly accelerates my work.

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

  For someone starting their journey with PostgreSQL, I would definitely recommend, after getting familiar with the basic functionality, to start reading books about internals—how the core works, how the optimizer functions, and how to improve the performance of your queries. Learning to read and understand query plans is also crucial.

  These skills will significantly enhance your role and value in any team that uses PostgreSQL.

About POSETTE & Events

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

  I genuinely believe that POSETTE (formerly Citus Con) is the best-organized conference I have ever participated in. It offers numerous opportunities for speakers, providing high-quality content and extensive promotion of the event. This makes it an excellent platform for building your brand and sharing your expertise with a broad audience. A large team from PostgreSQL at Microsoft works on this conference, but I especially want to acknowledge Claire Giordano and Teresa Giacomini. Their dedication is evident in every detail, and their high standards contribute significantly to making this conference outstanding.

• Could you share a memorable moment from a previous PostgreSQL conference you attended or spoke at?

  Before the war in Ukraine, my friends and I attended all the PgConf.EU events, and those were truly unforgettable moments. Since PgConf.EU is held in a new location, country, and city in Europe each year, it was a wonderful opportunity to visit these beautiful places, learn about new cultures, and explore historical sites. It was also a chance to reconnect with old friends from the community.

  One of the most memorable aspects for me was our attempt to organize a "Ukrainian party" on one of the conference days each year. I miss these gatherings deeply but am confident that we will all come together again to continue our tradition.