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Database insights, best practices, and technical deep-dives.
Technical Articles
In-depth guides from our database performance team
February 18, 2026
· 18 min readPerformanceHow to Debug Slow SQL Queries: A Step-by-Step Guide
Learn how to find, diagnose, and fix slow SQL queries using EXPLAIN ANALYZE, slow query logs, and proven debugging techniques. Covers missing indexes, N+1 patterns, full table scans, and query rewriting, with real SQL examples throughout.
February 25, 2026
· 14 min readComparisonPostgreSQL vs MySQL in 2026: A Complete Guide to Choosing the Right Database
A complete PostgreSQL vs MySQL comparison for 2026. Performance benchmarks, JSON support, replication models, licensing, migration complexity, and a practical decision framework for CTOs, architects, and developers.
March 3, 2026
· 16 min readOperationsDatabase Backup and Recovery: A Complete Best Practices Guide
Everything you need to build a complete database backup strategy: full vs incremental vs differential backups, PITR setup, RTO/RPO planning, tool comparison (pg_basebackup, WAL-G, Barman), recovery testing procedures, and compliance retention requirements.
March 5, 2026
· 15 min readCloudAWS RDS Performance Tuning: A Complete Optimization Guide
How to get maximum performance from AWS RDS: choosing the right instance class, tuning PostgreSQL parameter groups, configuring read replicas, optimising GP3 storage and IOPS, setting up CloudWatch and Performance Insights, cutting costs, and when to migrate to Aurora.
May 12, 2026
· 11 min readCloudAWS RDS Extended Support Is Doubling in 2026: Here's What You Owe and How to Stop It
MySQL 5.7 and PostgreSQL 11 on RDS entered Extended Support Year 3 in 2026, and AWS doubled the rate on March 1. Most teams don't know what they're paying. This guide shows exactly what the charges are, how to find them in your bill, and the three upgrade paths that eliminate the cost.
May 16, 2026
· 12 min readPerformancePostgreSQL Connection Exhaustion: How to Fix 'Too Many Connections' with PgBouncer
When your application hits PostgreSQL's connection limit, every new connection fails. The database looks unhealthy, the app returns 500s, and engineers blame the database, but the database is usually fine. This guide covers why the problem occurs and how to deploy PgBouncer to eliminate it.
May 19, 2026
· 10 min readPerformanceYour API Is Slow. Your Database Probably Isn't the Problem.
80% of slow API latency problems trace to the application layer: N+1 queries, connection pool exhaustion, SELECT *, or serial calls that could be parallel. Learn how to isolate where the time actually goes and fix each cause. Includes a real case: p99 from 4.2 seconds to 180ms.
May 22, 2026
· 12 min readPerformancePostgreSQL 18: Every Performance Improvement You Need to Know
PostgreSQL 18 is GA with 20-30% short query throughput gains, major vacuum improvements, enhanced query planner statistics, reliable logical replication, and pgvector improvements for AI workloads. Here's what changed versus 16, 17, and 19.
May 26, 2026
· 11 min readOperationsManaged DBA vs. Hiring In-House: The Full Cost Breakdown for 2026
Most engineering leaders underestimate the true cost of an in-house DBA by 40-60% because they think salary, not total cost. This guide breaks down the full economics of both models, the scenarios where each wins, and a side-by-side comparison across four company sizes.
June 16, 2026
· 13 min readCloudThe Database FinOps Guide: Stop Overpaying for Cloud Databases
Cloud database bills grow in ways that are hard to see until the number is already embarrassing. Overprovisioned instances, idle read replicas, storage accumulating quietly, queries doing full table scans on every request. Each adds a compounding line item. This guide covers the 7 biggest sources of RDS waste, the 4-step FinOps cycle, the full AWS RDS optimisation checklist, and a real SaaS example saving $36,000/year.
June 16, 2026
· 12 min readComparisonpgvector vs Pinecone in 2026: Benchmarks, Cost, and When to Use Each
Most teams evaluating vector search assume a serious AI application needs a dedicated vector database. That assumption is increasingly outdated. pgvector's HNSW indexing, PostgreSQL 18's throughput gains, and managed PostgreSQL offerings have shifted the decision boundary. This guide covers HNSW recall benchmarks, cost at three workload sizes, the hybrid SQL+vector search advantage most comparisons miss, and the exact conditions where Pinecone becomes the right call.
June 16, 2026
· 10 min readPerformanceWhat Is the N+1 Query Problem? (And Why It Kills APIs)
Your API takes four seconds to load. The database CPU looks healthy. You add a read replica. Nothing changes. You upgrade the instance. Still slow. Someone profiles the request and finds one API call is generating 501 database queries. This is the N+1 query problem: one of the most common and expensive performance issues in production. It doesn't throw errors and hides inside clean ORM code. This guide covers what it is, why it happens, how to detect it with pg_stat_statements, and five ways to fix it permanently.
June 16, 2026
· 11 min readCloudWhy Is My AWS RDS Bill So High? A Diagnostic Guide
Your AWS RDS bill is high for a reason, usually several. This guide covers the seven most common causes: overprovisioned compute, forgotten read replicas, inefficient queries, storage waste, gp2 storage, on-demand pricing, and solving the wrong problem entirely. Includes CloudWatch diagnostic commands, pg_stat_statements queries, and a 15-minute audit checklist.
September 14, 2026
· 13 min readCloudAWS RDS Cost Optimization: The Complete Playbook for 2026
Knowing why your RDS bill is high is half the job. This is the execution playbook: the right order of operations, AWS Compute Optimizer, Reserved Instances vs the new Database Savings Plans, Graviton migration, Aurora I/O-Optimized, and cutting data transfer costs with VPC endpoints.
September 14, 2026
· 14 min readAI DataThe 2026 AI-Ready Data Architecture Blueprint
A practical blueprint for enterprise AI data architecture: source systems, ingestion, storage, metadata, semantic context, retrieval, policy, serving, and the agent layer.
September 14, 2026
· 13 min readAI DataAI-Ready vs Agent-Ready Data: What's Actually Different in 2026?
AI-ready data can support copilots and models. Agent-ready data must support software that retrieves, reasons, calls tools, respects permissions, and may trigger actions.
September 14, 2026
· 15 min readAI DataWhat an Enterprise Agent Data Layer Should Look Like in 2026
A production agent data layer needs context, semantic models, retrieval, authorization, tool access, lineage, freshness, audit trails, and feedback loops.
September 14, 2026
· 13 min readAI DataSemantic Layer vs RAG: Why Enterprises Will Need Both
A semantic layer and RAG solve different problems. Enterprises need both when agents must answer business questions using governed metrics and unstructured evidence.
September 14, 2026
· 14 min readAI DataComposite Semantic Layer Architecture: The 2026 Enterprise Pattern
Enterprises rarely get one universal semantic layer. The practical pattern is composite: metrics, BI models, graphs, retrieval metadata, and AI context working together.
September 14, 2026
· 15 min readAI DataGraphRAG vs Vector RAG vs SQL Retrieval: Which Architecture Fits Which Problem?
GraphRAG, vector RAG, and SQL retrieval answer different questions. This decision framework maps them to evidence type, relationships, governance, latency, and cost.
September 14, 2026
· 14 min readAI DataThe Hidden Infrastructure Cost of Enterprise AI Agents
AI agent cost is not only model tokens. Poor data architecture creates recurring cost in ingestion, embeddings, storage, retrieval, context assembly, observability, and transfer.
September 14, 2026
· 13 min readAI Data10 Signs Your Data Stack Is Not Ready for AI Agents
If agents give inconsistent answers, over-retrieve context, ignore permissions, or cannot explain where answers came from, the issue is probably the data layer.
August 4, 2026
· 10 min readCachingRedis Caching Strategies: Cache-Aside, Write-Through, and Cache Invalidation Explained
A practical guide to the Redis caching patterns that actually hold up in production: cache-aside, write-through, TTL versus explicit invalidation, and how to prevent a cache stampede from taking your database down the moment a hot key expires.
August 11, 2026
· 11 min readData Engineeringdbt for Data Engineering: A Practical Guide to Building Reliable ELT Pipelines
dbt turned SQL transformations into software engineering: version control, testing, and documentation for your data pipeline. Here's how to structure models, avoid the incremental-model mistakes that corrupt production tables, and build pipelines your analytics team can actually trust.
August 18, 2026
· 10 min readInfrastructureTerraform for Database Infrastructure: Managing RDS, Aurora, and Cloud SQL as Code
Database infrastructure managed by hand in a cloud console eventually drifts, gets misconfigured, or gets destroyed by a well-meaning click. This guide covers the Terraform patterns that make database infrastructure safe to manage as code.
August 25, 2026
· 10 min readSecurityDatabase Security Compliance: A Practical Guide to Encryption, Access Control, and Audit Logging
Most database security gaps aren't exotic. They're a shared admin credential, an unencrypted backup, or an audit log nobody's actually reviewing. This guide covers the specific, checkable controls that satisfy the intent behind SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR requirements.
September 22, 2026
· 11 min readOperationsOracle to PostgreSQL Migration Cost: The Full Breakdown
Oracle's licensing stacks well past the $47,500/processor sticker price once partitioning, compression, and standby replication are added, but that number only explains why companies leave, not what leaving costs. This guide breaks down both: the real Oracle licensing math, and the PL/SQL conversion labor that actually drives migration cost.
September 22, 2026
· 11 min readSecurityMCP Server Security: Access Control and Guardrails for AI Agents
MCP shipped with authorization as an optional layer, and 40%+ of live remote servers run with none. This guide covers the OAuth 2.1 access-control model the spec actually mandates, the tool-poisoning and rug-pull attacks unique to agents, and the sandboxing and guardrail layer that closes the gap.
September 22, 2026
· 11 min readComparisonAirflow vs. Dagster
Airflow schedules tasks. Dagster reconciles assets. That one-line distinction explains almost every practical difference between them, plus what the July 2026 Prefect acquisition of Dagster Labs actually changes for anyone choosing today.
September 22, 2026
· 10 min readData EngineeringData Observability Tools
A pipeline can run green every night while the data inside it is quietly wrong. Here's what the five pillars actually monitor, how ML-based platforms differ from rule-based testing, and how the vendor landscape looks after three restructuring events in eighteen months.
September 22, 2026
· 10 min readData EngineeringConfluent Pricing: What's Actually Published, What Isn't, and What IBM Changes
Confluent Cloud publishes exact per-hour rates for four of its five cluster tiers, plus separate charges for networking, storage, connectors, and governance. The fifth tier, and every dollar of self-managed Confluent Platform licensing, is sales-quote-only.
September 22, 2026
· 11 min readComparisonIceberg vs. Delta Lake
Iceberg tracks table state through a metadata tree of snapshots and manifests. Delta Lake writes a sequential transaction log. That structural difference explains how each partitions, deletes, and scales, but it's no longer the decision that matters most. Here's the engineering comparison, plus what Databricks buying Iceberg's own creators actually changed.
September 22, 2026
· 12 min readSecurityGDPR Technical Controls for Data
GDPR Article 32 names exactly two example technical measures, pseudonymisation and encryption, then leaves everything else to 'appropriate.' Here's what that requires at the infrastructure layer: encryption that survives an Article 34 test, pseudonymisation that survives re-identification, and an erasure path that reaches backups, not just the primary database.
September 22, 2026
· 11 min readComparisonSnowflake vs. Databricks Pricing
Snowflake bills compute in Credits, a rate that's close to all-in, with storage bundled into the same invoice. Databricks bills in DBUs, but the dollar price changes by workload type, and it excludes the cloud infrastructure sitting underneath it. Here's every published rate from both platforms.
September 22, 2026
· 10 min readOperationsNetSuite to Dynamics 365
NetSuite runs every subsidiary inside one account with native, real-time consolidation. Dynamics 365 splits each one into a separate company governed by posting groups or intercompany pairs. That single structural difference is what actually drives the cost, risk, and timeline of a migration.