A Practical Introduction to Locking in PostgreSQL

We hear it often: "The database is slow! How come?" Often locks are the problem, but testing this hypothesis requires a bit of hunting, plus a solid grounding in PostgreSQL lock semantics.

When you leave this talk, you'll know:

1. How locks work in PostgreSQL.
2. When to suspect locks are a problem.
3. How to drill down to specifics: which operations are blocking which queries; which operations are locking which tables and rows. We'll cover tools like pgbadger as well as ad hoc, interactive techniques.
4. Common locking footguns and gotchas to watch out for — so you can either mitigate them, or prevent them altogether.

Unlock your database's potential; avoid locking woes!