What I will take away from the PGCONF.EU 2018 Lisbon

You like non-technical blogs? This blog on the pgconf.eu 2018 Lisbon is for you 😉

On PostgreSQL

Well, you’ve already heard about PostgreQSL, haven’t you?
This is all about Relational Database Management Systems. In other words, the invisible part of the IT.

PostgreSQL, or simply postgres, is a powerful, open source RDBMS with over 30 years of active development that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. At least, you probably met the PostgreSQL blue elephant after a few beers already once in your life, didn’t you? I did !

On pgconf.eu

PostgreSQL Conference Europe, PGCONF.EU, is the largest PostgreSQL conference in Europe. This year’s PGCONF.EU took place in Lisbon and was the 10th edition of this amusing meeting and cooperation event for PostgreSQL users. All editions took place in major European cities to make it easy for as many people as possible to come to the conference:

2008 ‐ Prato, Italy
2009 ‐ Paris, France
2010 ‐ Stuttgart, Germany
2011 ‐ Amsterdam, Netherlands
2012 ‐ Prague, Czech Republic
2013 ‐ Dublin, Ireland
2014 ‐ Madrid, Spain
2015 ‐ Vienna, Austria
2016 ‐ Tallinn, Estonia
2017 ‐ Warsaw, Poland

This won’t be a surprise for you if I tell that the number of attendees has increased over the 10 years. But interestingly, this year’s edition have reached around to 450 speakers and attendees where the registration process has already been stopped end of September 2018 because the conference PGCONF.EU was sold out.

On Techies

Now you will ask “who are the typical users of Postgres?”. “PostgreSQL users come from all size of companies all over the world. Postgres is global” says Marc Linster / EnterpriseDB (EDB). More than 200 papers have been submitted for the pgconf.eu 2018 event whereas around 50 sessions took place. So this has been very selective this year.

At this point of the blog, I have to tell that the pgconf.eu is a real techie event. Non techies are more or less welcome 😉 Techies went that far to avoid my attending the event that they sent a bird into the machine of my EasyJet flight that has first been delayed and then canceled on Monday night. But I really wanted to attend this major techie event, so I took a TAP flight on the next morning and arrived alive! We’ll see if I can save my journey back….

On dbi services at pgconf.eu

Arrived at the Marriott Hotel Lisbon, our 3-men team installed booth and live demo table for welcoming potential interested people in services of the Swiss PostgreSQL specialist dbi services on level 0 in Room Mediterranean.

Unfortunately, all sessions took place on level -1 where this was possible to get coffee and catering, lunch and even access to the hotel parc. So only 1/3 of the attendees went upstairs and visited the sponsors’ booths. Should be better organized next time.

Apart from this issue, the organization was awesome, the welcoming the attendees and partners, the sessions, the location and the catering were great. Also the social events proposed by PostgreSQL Europe. During the event we also had the opportunity to spend some time and had excellent discussions with our partner EnterpriseDB

Also Daniel had the opportunity to demonstrate the dbi OpenDB Appliance live to many interested people.

Not to be forgotten, we enjoyed the very nice atmosphere in the city of the discoverers (Magellan, Vasco da Gama, and many others)…

… and had another kind of “live demo” + a drink at Museu da Farmacia

Now it is time to say thank you and goodbye pgconf.eu !

Conclusion

For me, there were many lessons learned at the pgconf.eu #10. One of them was how to write a blog. Many thanks to my mentor, Daniel Westermann! Also, many thanks to Hervé Schweitzer especially for the night-walk through Lisbon and the great non-alcohol cocktail!

For you, well… at least you’ve got a more precise idea of what a non technical guy attending a technical event will take away from such events. And even if this is not the best blog you’ve ever read, not to write this blog would have been… bullshit!

See you 😉