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Nitin Jadhav

Microsoft

Nitin Jadhav is a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, contributing his expertise to the Azure Database for PostgreSQL team. Prior to Microsoft, he worked at EDB, where he delved into PostgreSQL development from version 14. His prior experience includes working at Toshiba, where he focused on SQLite database internals.

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This talk offers a comprehensive examination of the Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) mechanism within PostgreSQL, focusing on its file format and internal workings. WAL is a fundamental feature that ensures data durability by recording changes in a log before they are applied to the database. The talk delves into the three-step WAL process—logging, writing, and checkpointing—and discusses the benefits it provides, including data durability, crash recovery, replication, and backup capabilities. It also explores the WAL segment file naming convention, the internal layout of WAL segments, and the tools available for WAL inspection and analysis. By providing a detailed understanding of WAL's role in PostgreSQL, the talk aims to equip readers with the knowledge to interpret the WAL format effectively, illustrated with a live example. The targeted audience for this talk would likely be database administrators, system architects, and developers who are interested in the internal workings of PostgreSQL, particularly those who are involved with data durability, crash recovery, replication, and storage level changes to PostgreSQL.

Date:
2024 November 7 16:00 PST
Duration:
50 min
Room:
Dev: 422
Conference:
Seattle 2024
Language:
Track:
Dev
Difficulty:
Medium