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Understand the challenges that large tables create at scale in PostgreSQL. Sarat Balijepalli (Microsoft) focuses on these issues in his talk “Maintaining Large Tables in PostgreSQL” at POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026. Abstract: This talk focuses on the real problems large tables create at scale: autovacuum falling behind, bloat accumulating silently, planner misestimation, WAL explosions, and maintenance operations colliding with production traffic. Rather than treating these as isolated issues, we’ll examine them as symptoms of unsustainable data growth.
Using PostgreSQL (with specific considerations for Azure Database for PostgreSQL), the session walks through practical strategies to sustain performance over time: per-table autovacuum tuning, bloat and statistics management, maintenance options, and observability guardrails.
Finally, we’ll address the critical architectural questions: when is a large table no longer the right abstraction? We’ll compare options such as partitioning, hot/cold splits, rollup tables, sharding, and offloading analytical workloads.
Sarat Balijepalli has 18+ years of experience working on Oracle and Postgres databases. Currently he is working as a Senior Engineering Manager leading the performance charter in Azure Postgres team.
► Video chapters:
⏩ 00:00 – Music & introduction
⏩ 01:58 – Autovacuum limits and table bloat
⏩ 03:16 – Cache inefficiency and I/O bottlenecks
⏩ 04:20 – Vacuum / freeze storms explained
⏩ 06:33 – WAL volume explosion and replication lag
⏩ 09:18 – Lock contention, cascading blocks, and statistics staleness
⏩ 11:21 – HOT update failures and performance optimizations
⏩ 15:31 – Autovacuum tuning strategies that work
⏩ 20:06 – Preserving HOT updates and controlling WAL pressure
⏩ 23:09 – Reducing lock contention and keeping stats fresh
⏩ 26:36 – Closing
📕 Everything you need to know about POSETTE: An Event for Postgres can be found at: https://posetteconf.com
✅ Learn more: watch more POSETTE talks: https://aka.ms/posette-playlist
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