Scaling PostgreSQL at OpenAI: Lessons in Reliability, Efficiency, and Innovation
At POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2025, Bohan Zhang of OpenAI delivered a compelling talk on how OpenAI has scaled Azure Database for PostgreSQL- Flexible Server to meet the demands of one of the world’s most advanced AI platforms running at planetary scale. The Postgres team at Microsoft has partnered deeply with OpenAI for years to enhance the service to meet their performance, scale, and availability requirements, and it is great to see how OpenAI is now deploying and depending on Flexible Server as a core component of ChatGPT. Hearing firsthand about their challenges and breakthroughs is a reminder of what’s possible when innovation meets real-world needs. This blog post captures the key insights from Bohan’s POSETTE talk, paired with how Azure’s cloud platform supports innovation at scale. PostgreSQL at the Heart of OpenAI As Bohan shared during his talk, PostgreSQL is the backbone of OpenAI’s most critical systems. Because PostgreSQL plays a critical role in powering services like ChatGPT, Open AI has prioritized making it more resilient and scalable to avoid any disruptions. That’s why OpenAI has invested deeply in optimizing PostgreSQL for reliability and scale. Why Azure Database for PostgreSQL? OpenAI has long operated PostgreSQL on Azure, initially using a single primary instance without sharding. This architecture worked well—until write scalability limits emerged. Azure’s managed PostgreSQL service provides the flexibility to scale read replicas, optimize performance, and maintain high availability to provide global low latency reads without the burden of managing infrastructure. This is why we designed Azure Database for PostgreSQL to support precisely these kinds of high-scale, mission-critical workloads, and OpenAI’s use case is a powerful validation of that vision. Tackling Write Bottlenecks PostgreSQL’s MVCC (Multi-Version Concurrency Control) design presents challenges for write-heavy workloads—such as index bloat, autovacuum tuning complexity, and version churn. OpenAI addressed this by: Reducing unnecessary writes at the application level Using lazy writes and controlled backfills to smooth spikes Migrating extreme write-heavy workloads with natural sharding keys to other systems. These strategies allowed OpenAI to preserve PostgreSQL’s strengths while mitigating its limitations. Optimizing Read-Heavy Workloads With writes offloaded, OpenAI focused on scaling read-heavy workloads. Key optimizations included: Offloading read queries to replicas Avoiding long-running queries and expensive multi-way join queries Using PgBouncer for connection pooling, reducing latency from 50ms to under 5ms Categorizing requests by priority and assigning dedicated read replicas to high-priority traffic As Bohan noted, “After all the optimization we did, we are super happy with Postgres right now for our read-heavy workloads.” Schema Governance and Resilience OpenAI also implemented strict schema governance to avoid full table rewrites and production disruptions. Only lightweight schema changes are allowed, and long-running queries are monitored to prevent them from blocking migrations. To ensure resilience, we categorized requests by priority and implemented multi-level rate limiting—at the application, connection, and query digest levels. This helped prevent resource exhaustion and service degradation. Takeaway OpenAI’s journey is a masterclass in how to operate PostgreSQL at hyper-scale. By offloading writes, scaling read replicas, and enforcing strict schema governance, OpenAI demonstrated PostgreSQL on Azure meets the demands of cutting-edge AI systems. It also reinforces the value of Azure’s managed database services in enabling teams to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure. We’re proud of the work we’ve done to co-innovate with OpenAI and excited to see how other organizations can apply these lessons to their own PostgreSQL deployments. Check out the on-demand talk “Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI” and many more PostgreSQL community sessions from POSETTE.Ultimate Guide to POSETTE: An Event for Postgres, 2026 edition
POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026 is back for its 5th year: free, virtual, and unapologetically all about Postgres. No travel budget required and no jet lag involved. Just your laptop, a decent internet connection, and curiosity. This year the POSETTE 2026 schedule has 4 livestreams (16-18 June) with 44 talks at ~25 minutes each—covering everything from query performance and partitioning to Postgres 19 features, extensions, and use cases. Which is awesome but also a bit of work to figure out which talks are for you. Hence this ultimate guide post. Every talk will land on YouTube afterward (un-gated, of course) so if you miss anything you care about, you can watch it later. But if you can catch a livestream in June, do it. That’s when the “virtual hallway track” happens on Discord—where you can ask the POSETTE speakers questions and compare notes with other attendees. Meeting other attendees who have the same weird Postgres problems you do can be reassuring somehow. And yes, there will be swag. This guide is your cheat sheet: I’ve categorized and tagged all 44 talks so you don’t have to read 44 abstracts back-to-back. In this post you'll get: “By the numbers” summary Map of the 44 talks 2 Keynote sessions 23 Postgres core talks 11 Postgres ecosystem talks 8 Azure Database talks Why participate on the virtual hallway track on Discord A big thank you to our amazing speakers Join us for POSETTE 2026 & mark your calendars Official POSETTE 2026 Trailer “By the numbers” summary for POSETTE 2026 Here’s a quick snapshot of what you need to know about POSETTE this year: 3 days 16-18 June 2026 4 livestreams In Americas & EMEA time zones but of course you can watch from anywhere 44 talks All free, all virtual 2 invited keynotes Driving Postgres forward at Microsoft (Livestream 1), and Postgres 19 Hackers Panel: What’s In, What’s Out, & What’s Next (Livestream 2) 25 minutes Average length per talk ~1100 minutes Total minutes in POSETTE 2026 talks 50 speakers POSETTE 2026 speakers include PostgreSQL hackers and contributors, users, application developers, PG community members, Azure engineers, & Azure customers 6 keynote speakers Affan Dar & Charles Feddersen (Livestream 1); and Álvaro Herrera, Heikki Linnakangas, Melanie Plageman, & Thomas Munro (Livestream 2) 19 countries Speakers reside in 19 different countries 23 companies Speakers hail from 23 different companies 17.6% CFP acceptance rate 42 talks selected from 238 submisssions 75% general Postgres talks 33 talks are not cloud-specific at all, they’re about the Postgres technology & ecosystem 25% Azure-related talks 11 of 44 talks feature Azure Database for PostgreSQL or Azure HorizonDB 1 organizing company Organized by the Postgres team at Microsoft, in partnership with AMD 17 languages Published talk videos will have captions available in 17 languages, including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Chinese Simplified & Chinese Traditional Map of the 44 talks To help you quickly navigate all 44 talks, here’s a map of the high-level categories and detailed topics. : A map of the POSETTE 2026 talks—high-level categories and detailed tags to help you find what you care about 2 Keynote sessions Affan Dar and Charles Feddersen lead the PostgreSQL engineering and product teams at Microsoft, In this keynote, they’ll walk through how Microsoft is contributing to Postgres, both upstream in the open source project and in the cloud database service they build on top of it. Driving Postgres forward at Microsoft, by Affan Dar & Charles Feddersen (Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure HorizonDB, VS Code, Dev tools, community, Postgres hacking, open source, PosetteConf, livestream-1) Want to understand how Postgres features get decided? This keynote panel with 4 PostgreSQL committers & hackers will peel back the curtain. You’ll hear what made it into Postgres 19, what didn’t (and why), and get a sneak peek into a few of the things in the oven for Postgres 20. Postgres 19 Hackers Panel: What’s In, What’s Out, & What’s Next, by Álvaro Herrera, Heikki Linnakangas, Melanie Plageman, & Thomas Munro (Postgres 19, Postgres hacking, panel, open source, collaboration, multithreading, livestream-2) 23 Postgres core talks Data Modeling JSON in PostgreSQL - evil data type or just needs to be tamed?, by Boriss Mejias (JSON, performance, data modeling, livestream-1) PostgreSQL Design Patterns, by Chris Ellis (data modeling, SQL, PG use cases, livestream-1) Graph Data Exploring property graphs with SQL/PGQ in PostgreSQL, by Ashutosh Bapat (SQL/PGQ, graph data, data modeling, Postgres 19, livestream-4) LISTEN/NOTIFY LISTEN Carefully: How NOTIFY Can Trip Up Your Database, by Jimmy Angelakos (LISTEN/NOTIFY, PG use cases, triggers, livestream-4) Performance Maintaining Large Tables in PostgreSQL, by Sarat Balijepalli (WAL, performance, scaling Postgres, vacuum, autovacuum, statistics, partitioning, monitoring, livestream-3) My Postgres partitioning cookbook, by Derk van Veen (partitioning, PG use cases, data modeling, performance, livestream-4) PostgreSQL 17 vs 18: Side‑by‑Side Performance Wins in Real‑World Queries, by Divya Bhargov (performance, PG use cases, livestream-3) Vacuuming Enhancements in PostgreSQL 18: Faster, Smarter, More Predictable, by Shashikant Shakya (vacuum, async IO, monitoring, performance, livestream-4) PG Internals Linux and PostgreSQL in the Multiverse of Connections, by Josef Machytka (Linux, PG internals, connection pooling, livestream-2) pg_stats: How Postgres Internal Stats Work, by Richard Yen (statistics, pg_stats, PG internals, query planner, livestream-2) Postgres isn’t slow, your storage is, by Sai Srirampur (storage, IO, performance, livestream-3) PostgreSQL queues done right with PgQ, by Alexander Kukushkin (queues, PG internals, extensions, livestream-2) random_page_cost in Postgres - why the default is 4.0 and should you lower it?, by Tomas Vondra (PG internals, IO, performance, livestream-1) The Wonderful World of WAL, by Bruce Momjian (WAL, PG internals, replication, livestream-3) What's new with constraints in Postgres 18, by Gülçin Yıldırım Jelínek (constraints, data modeling, livestream-2) Postgres Hacking Fuzzing PostgreSQL, by Adam Wolk (PG internals, testing, Dev tools, libpq, security, livestream-1) Journey of developing a performance optimization feature in PostgreSQL, by Rahila Syed (Postgres hacking, PG internals, performance, WAL, replication, livestream-4) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to PostgreSQL Hacking: Don’t Panic, Just Start Small, by Xuneng Zhou (Postgres hacking, PG internals, community, livestream-2) Replication Past, Present, and Future: Logical Decoding and Replication in PostgreSQL, by Hari Kiran (replication, logical decoding, PG internals, livestream-4) Where Does My INSERT Go? A Logical Replication Story, by Hamid Akhtar (replication, PG internals, WAL, livestream-4) Security From Dev to Prod: Securing Postgres the Right Way, by Sakshi Nasha (security, roles, PG use cases, extensions, monitoring, livestream-4) From trust to Tokens: A Short History of PostgreSQL Authentication, by Murat Tuncer (authentication, security, livestream-2) PostgreSQL vs. SQL Server: Security Model Differences, by Taiob Ali (security, authentication, SQL Server, roles, livestream-1) 11 Postgres ecosystem talks Analytics pg_lake: Postgres as a lakehouse, by Marco Slot (pg_lake, extensions, OLAP, data warehouse, Iceberg, DuckDB, analytics, livestream-2) Apache AGE Querying & Visualizing Graphs in Postgres with Apache AGE, by Christian Miles (Apache AGE, graph data, data visualization, SQL/PGQ, Azure HorizonDB, livestream-1) Autotuning Building safety tooling for risk-free AI tuning of Postgres: Fast cars need fast brakes, by Mohsin Ejaz (autotuning, AI, performance, monitoring, livestream-2) Change Data Capture Building Event-Driven Systems with PostgreSQL Logical Replication and Drasi, by Diaa Radwan (Drasi, replication, WAL, CDC, livestream-3) Citus Move Less, Move Faster: Speeding Up Citus Cluster Scaling, by Muhammad Usama (Citus, extensions, performance, scaling Postgres, livestream-4) Dev Tools An MCP for your Postgres DB, by Pamela Fox (MCP, AI, Python, Dev tools, livestream-1) pgcov: Bringing Real Test Coverage to PostgreSQL Code, by Pavlo Golub (testing, Postgres hacking, Dev tools, extensions, CI/CD, livestream-3) PostgreSQL Tooling Across AI Editors and Agents, by Matt McFarland (Dev tools, VS Code, Cursor, AI, data visualization, Apache AGE, graph data, Azure, MCP, Copilot, livestream-1) Django PostgreSQL Generated Columns by Example, by Paolo Melchiorre (app dev, Django, generated columns, livestream-2) Kubernetes Quorum-Based Consistency for Cluster Changes with CloudNativePG Operator, by Jeremy Schneider & Leonardo Cecchi (CloudNativePG, Kubernetes, PG use cases, livestream-3) Performance Modelling Postgres Performance Degradation on Burstable Cloud Instances, by Chun Lin Goh (performance, burstable, compute, QA, livestream-4) 8 Azure Database for PostgreSQL & Azure HorizonDB talks AI-related talks From Queries to Agents: The Next Era of Data Retrieval on PostgreSQL, by Abe Omorogbe (AI, MCP, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, graph data, Apache AGE, Azure HorizonDB, livestream-3) Production RAG at Scale with Azure Database for PostgreSQL, by Julia Schröder Langhaeuser & Paula Santamaría (Azure Database for PostgreSQL, AI, RAG, PG use cases, livestream-3) AMD Choose the Right Azure Infrastructure to Improve Postgres Performance by Over 60%, by Andrew Ruffin (AMD, performance, Azure, compute, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, livestream-1) Azure HorizonDB Why we built Azure HorizonDB for PostgreSQL, by Dingding Lu (Azure HorizonDB, scaling Postgres, livestream-3) Flexible Server pg_duckdb in Action: Accelerating Analytics on Azure Database for PostgreSQL, by Nitin Jadhav (DuckDB, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, extensions, OLAP, analytics, performance, livestream-4) The Rise of PostgreSQL as the Everything Database, by Varun Dhawan (Postgres history, extensions, graph data, Apache AGE, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, DuckDB, Citus, livestream-3) What I’ve Learned Teaching Postgres to 200+ field engineers at Microsoft, by Paula Berenguel (training, Azure, Postgres skilling, livestream-1) Oracle to Postgres Migrating VLDBs from Oracle to Azure Database for PostgreSQL, by Adithya Kumaranchath (migration, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Oracle to Postgres, livestream-2) Why participate in the virtual hallway track on Discord If you’ve checked out the schedule and plan to watch some of the talks, you might still be wondering: why join live—and why bother with the virtual hallway track on Discord? Here’s how a few of last year’s attendees described the experience: “Very impressed by all the speakers and content I am absolutely shattered as there was so much great content in all the talks over the past 3 days but I have probably learnt more in these sessions than I could have in months of reading up.” “Want to let y’all know how much I got from this onine conference, the speakers were excellent, well-prepared and well-presented. The hosts were informative, engaging, & amusing. The discord hallway channel made me feel connected. I learned a lot and found some new inspiration. I’ll be back next year!” “I have no idea how I’m going to summarise all the interesting stuff for coworkers.” The common thread: the live, shared experience—being able to ask questions, compare notes, and learn alongside other people in real time. How to join the virtual hallway track Head to the #posetteconf channel on Discord (on the Microsoft Open Source Discord) That’s where speakers and attendees hang out during the livestreams—it’s where you can ask questions, share reactions, and just say hi Big thank you to our amazing speakers Every great event starts with great talks—and great talks start with great speakers. Want to learn more about the people behind these talks? Visit the POSETTE 2026 Speaker page Click a speaker’s bio to see their written interview (if available) If a speaker has been a guest on the Talking Postgres podcast in the past, then you’ll find a link to their episode there, too Join us for POSETTE 2026! Mark your calendars I hope you join us for POSETTE 2026. Consider yourself officially invited. As part of the talk selection team, I’m definitely biased—but I truly believe these speakers and talks are worth your time. I’ll be hosting Livestream 1 and you’ll find me in the #posetteconf Discord chat. I hope to see you there. And please: tell your Postgres friends, so they don’t miss out! 🗓️ Add the livestreams to your calendar Livestream 1: Tue 16 June, 8am–2pm PDT (UTC-7) [ register for updates ] and/or [ add to calendar ] Livestream 2: Wed 17 June, 8am–2pm CEST (UTC+2) [ register for updates ] and/or [ add to calendar ] Livestream 3: Wed 17 June, 8am–2pm PDT (UTC-7) [ register for updates ] and/or [ add to calendar ] Livestream 4: Thu 18 June, 8am–2pm CEST (UTC+2) [ register for updates ] and/or [ add to calendar ] Watch last year’s POSETTE 2025 talks in advance: And if you want to get ready, you can watch talks from the POSETTE 2025 playlist on YouTube anytime, anywhere. Lots of solid, useful, and evergreen Postgres talks in there. “Official Trailer” for POSETTE 2026 is on YouTube To help more developers, community members, and Postgres users discover POSETTE 2026, our team created this short video trailer. Take a peek and share it with friends as an invitation of sorts. We’re trying to make sure that people don’t miss their opportunity to be part of the livestreams and ask questions on the discord during the conference (as well as watch the talks on YouTube after the event is over.) Watch and share the trailer: Official Trailer for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026 Acknowledgements & Gratitude I’ve already thanked the 50 amazing speakers above. In addition, thanks go to Silvano Coriani, Cornelia Biacsics, Aaron Wislang, and My Nguyen for reviewing parts of this post before publication. I also want to thank the team at AMD for their partnership and support of POSETTE this year! And of course, big thank you to the POSETTE 2026 organizing team and POSETTE talk selection team—without you, there would be no POSETTE! Figure 3: Visual invitation to join the virtual hallway track for POSETTE 2026 on the Microsoft Open Source Discord, so you can chat with the speakers & others in the Postgres community
