diff --git a/content/blog/matthew-mols-pgedge/index.md b/content/blog/matthew-mols-pgedge/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5c009691 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/matthew-mols-pgedge/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ +--- +title: "Sticking with Open Source: pgEdge and CloudNativePG" +date: 2026-01-02 +draft: false +image: + url: pgedge_cloudnativepg.jpg + attribution: +authors: + - fdrees +tags: + - helm + - ImageCatalog + - CNCF + - kubernetes + - postgresql + - open-source +summary: "We talked to Matthew Mols, Sr. Director of Engineering at pgEdge, +about how CloudNativePG enables them to meet the requirements of their customers +using just open source." +--- + +[Matthew Mols](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmols/) is the Sr. Director of Engineering at pgEdge, a team of engineers and +entrepreneurs on a mission to make it easy to build, deploy and manage enterprise +grade applications at scale on Postgres. + +Recently pgEdge announced their [CloudNativePG integration](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pgedge-announces-cloudnativepg-integration-simplifying-postgres-on-kubernetes-3166/) and them joining the +Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). + +We had a chance to talk to Matt about their use of CloudNativePG. + +## Why CloudNativePG works for pgEdge + +Matt loves learning about customers' challenges with Postgres, and thinking about +how they can build or suggest tools and approaches to make their lives easier. +"I'm continually surprised by the different ways folks are leveraging Postgres +in their businesses." + +Matt's role is focused on developing tools that enable pgEdge's customers to +effectively deploy Postgres, whether that’s on Kubernetes, VMs, bare metal, or in +the Cloud. A lot of this work is centered around making it easier to use tools +together to meet the requirements of different kinds of customers. + +"We are fully committed to open source and tend to utilize a combination of open +source extensions and tools that we've developed and released, like Spock for +multi-master (active-active) logical replication, combined with stable community +tools like CloudNativePG." + +pgEdge uses CloudNativePG in their [Helm chart](https://docs.pgedge.com/pgedge-containers/), which allows users to deploy +active-active databases into multiple Kubernetes clusters, and keep them in sync. + +## Getting started with CloudNativePG + +Before CloudNativePG, Matt and his team used other operators, and a mix of custom +Helm charts that leveraged Kubernetes primitives to deploy Postgres instances. +CloudNativePG's popularity and stability, and its acceptance into the CNCF, +confirmed that it was the right choice to switch to as the default. + +"Working with CloudNativePG has been really straightforward for us since we've +moved to it exclusively. In particular, the documentation is very well done, +with a combination of "start from here" examples, combined with in-depth guides +for every feature. Deploying Postgres comes with a lot of choices on specific +configuration, and it does a great job of laying out why you would choose from +one option or the other, with sensible defaults." + +Access to stable Service endpoints that point to the current primary instance +is the thing Matt mentions as "one of the most valuable aspects of deploying a +CloudNativePG cluster". Matt: "Outside of Kubernetes there are many tools you need +to integrate correctly to give that guarantee to applications and integrations." +pgEdge leverages these stable services to enable distributed databases across +multiple CloudNativePG clusters in different Kubernetes clusters, while relying +on automatic failover with standby instances in each region. + +In terms of roadmap, Matt is particularly excited about the recent introduction +of dynamic loading of PostgreSQL extensions, and some of the upcoming work to +extend that to the ImageCatalog CRD. "As Postgres has embraced containerization +more and more, this has been a challenging area to navigate, with growing image +sizes, dependency management headaches, and adherence to license requirements. +In particular, this is going to go a long way towards improving how we manage +supply chain risk in the Postgres community." + +## What's next? + +Matt looks forward to contributing back to the project in the future. "Our hope +is to look to contribute more capabilities that enable distributed deployment +with CloudNativePG, potentially as part of supporting the CNPG-I approach to +plugins." The goal is to make it easier to operate active-active databases that +span across multiple Kubernetes clusters, enabling better support for different +types of multi-region deployments. "Our thought is that it's best done through +CloudNativePG interfaces." diff --git a/content/blog/matthew-mols-pgedge/pgedge_cloudnativepg.jpg b/content/blog/matthew-mols-pgedge/pgedge_cloudnativepg.jpg new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f3eb9d36 Binary files /dev/null and b/content/blog/matthew-mols-pgedge/pgedge_cloudnativepg.jpg differ