Scalability, in Graphical Form, Analyzed

I'm at Surge, this week, where I just listened to Baron Schwartz give a talk about scalability and performance.  As usual, Baron was careful to distinguish between performance (which is how fast it is) and scalability (which is how much faster you can make it by adding more resources).  One of the things Baron talked about was Neil Guenther's Universal Scalability Law, which attempts to model the behavior of complex systems (such as database systems) as you add threads, or nodes, or users.

Postgres Open, and What Makes a Good Talk

My last few blog posts have been all about scalability and performance, mostly because that's what I've been spending most of my time on these last few months.  But I'm pleased to have another subject: Postgres Open.  I've been going to PostgreSQL conferences for a few years now, but Postgres Open - which is a new conference this year - was my first experience being on the program committee.