The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces today that the third beta release of PostgreSQL 9.6 is available for download. This release contains previews of all of the features which will be available in the final release of version 9.6, including fixes to many of the issues found in the first and second betas. Users are encouraged to continue testing their applications against 9.6 beta 3.

Changes Since Beta 2

Our users and contributors tested the first two betas, and found and reported many bugs and usability issues. This beta release fixes many of those issues. If you reported an issue, please test this beta to ensure that it's completely fixed.

This included many more fixes to parallel query:

• adding support for TABLESAMPLE
• correcting cost data in Gather nodes
• check parallel-safety of all appended relations
• fix planner issues with initPlans
• fix several issues with client_encoding
• clean up EXPLAIN output for parallel queries
• multiple changes to parallel aggregation internals

Among the other issues addressed were:

• add conninfo field to pg_stat_wal_receiver
• clear all-frozen visibilitymap status when locking tuples
• correctly dump database and tablespace ACLs
• avoid invalidating all foreign-join cached plans when user mappings change
• fix nested NOT operation cleanup in tsquery
• allow IMPORT FOREIGN SCHEMA within pl/pgsql
• print a given subplan only once in EXPLAIN
• change the GetForeignUpperPaths API
• fix several issues in postgres_fdw
• added many additional regression tests
• many documentation updates and clarifications
• multiple translation updates for the docs

Due to changes in system catalogs, a pg_upgrade or dump and restore will be required for users migrating databases from earlier betas. This includes a version update to the pg_control tool, making it incompatible with PostgreSQL 9.4 and earlier. This beta also includes patches to many issues shared with earlier versions, which will be updated in an upcoming minor release.

Note that some known issues remain unfixed. Before reporting a bug in the beta, please check the Open Items page.

Beta Schedule

This is the third beta release of version 9.6. The PostgreSQL Project will release additional betas as required for testing, followed by one or more release candidates, until the final release in late 2016. For further information please see the Beta Testing page.

Links

• Downloads Page
• Beta Testing Information
• 9.6 Beta Release Notes
• What's New in 9.6
• 9.6 Open Items

Crunchy Certified PostgreSQL Receives Level 2 + Certification, Meeting Common Criteria’s Rigid Standards and Organizations’ Security Needs

Charleston, SC — July 19, 2016 — Crunchy Data, a leading provider of trusted open source PostgreSQL and PostgreSQL technology, support and training, today announced that Crunchy Certified PostgreSQL, the company’s commercially available distribution of PostgreSQL 9.5, has been awarded Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2+ certification, an international standard for computer security certification. It is the first commercially available 100% open source relational database management system to receive Common Criteria certification.

For more information please see the full press release here.

Notable changes include :

• Many improvements to insert into .. values(?,?) -> insert .. values(?,?), (?,?)... rewriter. Give it a try by using reWriteBatchedInserts=true connection property. 2-3x improvements for insert batch can be expected
• Full test suite passes against PostgreSQL 9.6, and OpenJDK 9
• Performance optimization for timestamps (~TimeZone.getDefault optimization)
• Allow build-from-source on GNU/Linux without maven repositories, and add Fedora Copr test to the regression suite

The full changelog can be found here

PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2016 in Tallin, Estonia, on November 1-4 is now accepting registrations for conference attendance at http://2016.pgconf.eu/registration/.

The Early Bird special price will be available until September 14th, and is limited to 75 tickets which is a great reason to get your registration in early!

There are also six training sessions available for registration - two full day and four half day sessions - for the Tuesday before the main event. These are all limited space sessions, so make sure you register early if you want to attend!

And don't forget - the call for papers is still open! If you have already submitted a talk, or are planning to submit one, we suggest you wait to register until you have received a confirmation if the talk was accepted or not. The early bird rate will be available long enough for you to register after you have received this notification - and if your talk is accepted, attendance is of course free!

We are accepting proposals for talks in English. Each session will last 45 minutes, and may be on any topic related to PostgreSQL.

The submission deadline is August 7th. Selected speakers will be notified before August 24th, 2016.

Please submit your proposals by going to http://2016.pgconf.eu/callforpapers/ and following the instructions.

The proposals will be considered by committee who will produce a schedule to be published nearer the conference date.

All selected speakers will get free entry to the conference (excluding training sessions). We do not in general cover travel and accommodations for speakers, but may be able to do that in limited cases. If you require assistance with funding to be able to attend, please make a note of this in the submission notes field.

The full call for papers is available on the website

As usual, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us at contact@pgconf.eu.

I am happy to announce the new major release of Database .NET 18.9. It is an innovative, powerful and intuitive multiple database management tool, With it you can browse objects, design tables, edit rows, export data, run queries and migrate data with a consistent interface.

Free, All-In-One, Portable, Single executable file and Multi-language.

Major New features from version 18.1 to 18.9:

• PostgreSQL 9.6 compatibility
• Added Support for multi-dimensional arrays (PG)
• Added Support for bigserial datatype (PG)
• Added Support for Reporting Errors and Messages (PG)
• Added Support for LISTEN (listen for a notification) (PG)
• Added Support for browsing delimited text files
• Added Automatic reconnection
• Ability to Cancel executing command
• Ability to Copy Selected Results to Clipboard
• Ability to Calculate Selected Cells
• Ability to Export Results to PSV/SSV (Pipe and Semicolon delimited) (.psv;.ssv)
• Improved SQL History
• Improved Query Builder
• Improved Binding Procedure and Function parameters
• Improved Transaction Mode
• Improved Find In Grid
• Improved Data Import and Export
• Improved Data Editor and Browser
• Improved Generating Batch Scripts
• Improved SQL Editor
• Improved AutoComplete and IntelliSense
• Improved SQL File Version Control
• Improved Database Migration and Data Synchronization (Pro)
• ...and more

For more information please visit http://fishcodelib.com/Database.htm.

2ndQuadrant is delighted to announce the release of repmgr 3.1.4 - the most popular tool for PostgreSQL failover management.

First introduced in 2010, repmgr helps DBAs and System Administrators manage a cluster of PostgreSQL databases. By taking advantage of the Hot Standby capability introduced in PostgreSQL 9, repmgr greatly simplifies the process of setting up and managing databases with high availability and scalability requirements.

Several improvements and bug fixes have been implemented, particularly better path handling and node shutdown detection during switchover operations. To view the release notes, please click here.

New versions of Postgres Migration Tookit has been released with improved support for schemas, default values, "pure" time and many other improvements.

Visit http://www.convert-in.com/pgskit.htm for details.

SQL Maestro Group announces the release of PostgreSQL Maestro 16.6, a powerful Windows GUI solution for PostgreSQL database server administration and database development.

The new version is immediately available for download.

Top 10 new features:

1. PostgreSQL 9.6 compatibility.
2. Support for Row Security Policies (PostgreSQL 9.5+).
3. Support for BRIN indexes (PostgreSQL 9.5+).
4. Support for "Allow Connections" and "Is Template" options (PostgreSQL 9.5+).
5. Generate Updatable View tool becomes available for PostgreSQL 9.2 and lower.
6. Support for indexes for materialized views.
7. Improved "Show SQL Help" command flexibility.
8. Support for Adobe Reader DC in BLOB Editor.
9. Default Data Import settings can now be set up in the Program Options dialog.
10. Some performance and usability improvements.

There are also some other useful things. Full press release is available at the SQL Maestro Group website.

There is only one more week left to get in on the Early Bird tickets for PostgresOpen 2016 being held in Dallas, TX!

Early Bird Tickets and All Tutorials can be purchased here: https://2016.postgresopen.org/tickets/

Early Bird ticket sales for PostgresOpen 2016 have been extended through Friday, July 8th, giving you one last week to get in at the Early Bird rate and save $200 off of your registration!

We have a bunch of great tutorials to choose from also, but space is limited!

Conference Tutorials

We’ve brought in some new presenters and topics this year for our tutorial sessions held on Tuesday, September 13th.

• Intro to PostGIS - Regina Obe, Leo Hsu
• Seamless failover with pgBouncer and Consul - Scott Mead
• Linux tuning to improve PostgreSQL performance: from hardware to postgresql.conf - Ilya Kosmodemiansky
• Advanced SQL + Functions - Joe Conway, Stephen Frost

In addition, Crunchy Data and RedHat are offering a free, all-day, 2-part tutorial covering Autoscaling PostgreSQL with Kubernetes and OpenShift presented by Jeff McCormick of Crunchy Data and Steven Pousty of RedHat.

All of the selected talks have been published for your review here: https://postgresopen.org/events/sessions/pgopen2016/

Event Hotel

Time to book your room at the Westin Galleria Dallas. Book your reservation now here: https://2016.postgresopen.org/venue/ at the discount room rate of $189/night, with free wifi and other cool stuff we'll be announcing later!

Sponsorship

PostgresOpen could not be put on without the support of our excellent sponsors!

https://2016.postgresopen.org/sponsors/

PostgresOpen 2016 is proud to announce 2ndQuadrant (Diamond), EnterpriseDB (Platinum), Crunchy Data (Gold), and OmniTI (Silver) as top-tier sponsors!

Keep an eye out on social media and the conference website for the schedule, which will be published in the next few days!

We look forward to seeing you in Dallas!

https://2016.postgresopen.org/

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces today that the second beta release of PostgreSQL 9.6 is available for download. This release contains previews of all of the features which will be available in the final release of version 9.6, including fixes to many of the issues found in the first beta. Users are encouraged to begin testing their applications against 9.6 beta 2.

Changes Since Beta1

Our users and contributors reported bugs against 9.6 beta 1, and some of them have been fixed in this release. This includes multiple fixes for failure and performance issues in parallel query. We urge our community to re-test to ensure that these bugs are actually fixed, including:

• update most contrib extensions for parallel query
• two fixes for pg_trgm (trigram) bugs
• rewrite code to estimate join sizes for better performance
• correct handling of argument and result datatypes for partial aggregation
• fix lazy_scan_heap so that it won't mark pages all-frozen too soon
• mark additional functions as parallel-unsafe
• check PlaceHolderVars before pushing down a join in postgres_fdw
• improve the situation for parallel query versus temp relations
• don't generate parallel paths for rels with parallel-restricted outputs
• make psql_crosstab plans more stable
• finish loose ends for SQL ACCESS METHOD objects, including pg_dump
• stop the executor if no more tuples can be sent from worker to leader
• several pg_upgrade fixes to support new features
• fix regression tests for phrase search
• add new snapshot fields to serialize/deserialize functions
• measure Bloom index signature-length reloption in bits, not words
• many improvements to parallel regression tests
• many documentation updates and clarifications
• multiple translation updates for the docs

Additionally, we've made some user-visible changes to parameters and functions. These may cause dump/restore between beta 1 and beta 2 to generate errors. This includes:

• rename max_parallel_degree to max_parallel_workers_per_gather
• add integrity-checking functions to pg_visibility
• add VACUUM (DISABLE_PAGE_SKIPPING) for emergencies
• add pg_truncate_visibility_map function
• add min_parallel_relation_size GUC
• change default of backend_flush_after GUC to 0 (disabled)

Note that some known issues remain unfixed. Before reporting a bug in the beta, please check the Open Items page.

Beta Schedule

This is the second beta release of version 9.6. The PostgreSQL Project will release additional betas as required for testing, followed by one or more release candidates, until the final release in late 2016. For further information please see the Beta Testing page.

Links

• Downloads Page
• Beta Testing Information
• 9.6 Beta Release Notes
• What's New in 9.6
• 9.6 Open Items

You can now quickly create cross-region read replicas for your unencrypted Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL database instances with just a few clicks on the AWS Management Console. You can use this feature to reduce read latency for your customers in different geographic locations, to create a backup of your primary database for disaster recovery purposes, or quickly migrate your database to a different AWS Region.

Disaster Recovery: You can create cross-region read replicas of your primary database instance to have a disaster recovery solution. If your primary region faces a disruption, you can promote the replica to a master and keep your business operational.

Scaling: You can use cross-region read replicas to support read queries from your workloads across various geographic locations. This will reduce latency by serving your customers from a database that is close to them.

Cross-region Migration: If you would like to migrate your database instance quickly to another AWS region, you may do so by using cross-region replication. Simply create a replica in your target region, and once it is ready, promote it to master and point your application to it.

This feature is available for all RDS PostgreSQL databases that are version 9.5.2 or 9.4.7 and higher. To create a cross-region replica of a database instance operating on an older version, you can upgrade to a supported version by performing a database version upgrade. To learn more about cross-region replication for RDS PostgreSQL, please refer to the RDS documentation.

RazorSQL 7.0, an SQL editor, database query tool, database browser, and database administration tool, is now available. Using RazorSQL, users can query, edit, browse, and manage all major databases from one tool. RazorSQL supports over 30 databases, examples of which include the following: PostgreSQL, Amazon SimpleDB, Apache Derby, DB2, Firebird, FrontBase, H2, HSQLDB, Informix, Intersystems Cache, JavaDB, MS Access, MySQL, OpenBase, Oracle, Pervasive, SQLite, SQL Azure, SQL Server, Sybase, Sybase SQL Anywhere and Teradata. Connect to other databases via JDBC or ODBC (Windows only). Users can also use the built in relational database engine for their database needs.

Some of the main features contained in RazorSQL are visual tools for creating, editing, describing, altering, dropping, and viewing database objects such as tables, views, indexes, procedures, functions, and triggers; tools for importing and exporting data in various formats such as MS Excel, delimited files, SQL insert statements, HTML, XML, and text; a database browser for the viewing of database objects and structures; search tools for searching for database objects and database data, tools for building SQL queries and generating SQL and DDL, a SQL formatting tool, SQL history tracking and and SQL favorites tool for storing frequently used SQL statements, and a robust programming editor and query tool with support for SQL, PL/SQL, TransactSQL, SQL PL, PHP, Java, XML, HTML, and many other programming languages that features tools for searching and replacing data, programmable macros, coding sidekicks for various programming languages, a file system browser, function and method browsers, and much more.

New features in version 7.0 include database conversion support for converting DB2 database tables to PostgreSQL and several other database types, more support for the Amazon Redshift database, and enhanced DDL generation options.

Versions of RazorSQL are available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris.

RazorSQL 7.0 is available for immediate download at http://www.razorsql.com. Pricing of RazorSQL starts at $99.95 USD for a single user, and tiered discounts are offered for multiple license purchases.

More Info:http://www.razorsql.com/

Download URL: http://www.razorsql.com/download.html

Change Log: http://www.razorsql.com/updates.html

Screenshot URL:

(Windows / Linux): http://www.razorsql.com/images/windows/main.gif

(Mac OS X): http://www.razorsql.com/images/mac/main.png

Yohz Software announces the release of DB Doc 3.0 on June 3, 2016, and is available for immediate download.

DB Doc benefits:

• Eliminate tedious and time-consuming manual documentation tasks
• Satisfy audit requirements by keeping complete and timely documentation
• Document a database in a couple of clicks
• Create documents in HTML, CHM, and PDF formats
• View inter-object and inter-database dependencies in your documents
• Document layouts can be fully customizable to suit your requirements
• Keep teams up to date by distributing documentation
• Runs on Windows XP to Windows 10
• Runs in Wine, so you can use DB Doc on your favorite Linux distribution
• Supports PostgreSQL 8.3 to 9.5, without the need for any additional database drivers.

For more details about DB Doc, visit the product page here.