FOSDEM Is This WeekendIf you have not heard, this weekend is FOSDEM.  FOSDEM this year is virtual (and open to all), and it looks like it is going to be an absolutely stellar lineup of open source content.  The details:  February 6-7th, 2021, with over 600 speakers, over 700 sessions, and 113 tracks!  So much to see.   Percona is once again participating in this year’s festivities, with a total of eight speakers across 13 total sessions!  

The schedule specifically for Percona speakers is available here:
https://www.percona.com/community/events/fosdem-2021

But I see several Percona alums are speaking at FOSDEM as well! It will be good to hear from former Percona colleagues like:

Looking through the schedule, here are the HOSS’s picks for must-see sessions:

  1. Valerii Kravchuk (MariaDB) – Linux /proc filesystem for MySQL DBAs – Sampling /proc content for troubleshooting:  Valerii has been in the MySQL/MariaDB ecosystem for as long as I can remember working for MySQL, Oracle, Percona, and now MariaDB.  He knows the ins and outs of troubleshooting the most complex problems and bugs imaginable.  For me, this is a MUST-attend session because you will get a good deep understanding of Linux performance.  His talk on BPFtrace is also excellent, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for deep performance.
  2. Sveta Smirnova(Percona): MySQL Performance for DevOps:  Sveta has been solving the toughest problems the database sphere has to throw at her for years at MySQL, then Oracle, and now at Percona.  She has seen the performance issues of thousands of customers and knows the trends in the community.  Her research, knowledge, and wisdom on all things Databases is definitely something not to be missed for your database geeks!
  3. Matthew Hodgson (Matrix) – Building massive virtual communities in Matrix or… Spaces: The Final Frontier! I am very intrigued by Matrix and their stated goal of “Our goal is to ensure no open source project ever uses Slack/Discord/Telegram to collaborate ever again. “.  Let’s face it; Slack is expensive and as corporate as ever, and open source alternatives are great!
  4. Ibrar Ahmed (Percona) & Peter Zaitsev (Percona): Pg_stat_monitor – The new way to analyze query performance in PostgreSQL: I am an absolute sucker for performance.  I know more about pg-stat-monitor than many because I work at Percona, but setting aside my corporate hat… people who run PostgreSQL and care about performance and observability should definitely check this one out.  
  5. Oleg Ivanov (Samsung AI) & Yerzhaisang Taskali:  Adaptive Query Optimization in PostgreSQL: approaches and challenges: Did you know that I first learned the internals of MySQL and InnoDB hacking debugging the optimizer and the statistics generation?  Some things pique my interest, and this talk is one of them.  Oleg and Yerzhaisang will present the work they are doing to enhance and improve the statistics collected and the overall query plan.  Very excited to see this.  
  6. Stefan Hajnoczi – The Evolution of File Descriptor Monitoring in Linux From select(2) to io_uring: Deep Linux discussion on the performance and evolution of some of the most critical and some of the lowest level calls… it has the potential to be very eye-opening. Hopefully, it can give us some new and interesting insights!
  7. Krunal Bauskar (Huawei) – Running MySQL on ARM: the team here at Percona ran performance benchmarks on ARM in PostgreSQL, and we were blown away by not only the price but the potential price difference in cloud compute options!  I want to see the work going on here with MySQL.  
  8. Shlomi Noach (PlanetScale) – Open Source Database Infrastructure with Vitess: Vitess is a hot topic for many in the MySQL community.   It provides great scalability and performance.  This is a can’t miss if you have not heard about Vitess before!
  9. Peter Zaitsev (Percona): 18 Things To Do When You Have a MySQL Bottleneck: I know, I know… you may feel I am biased and kissing up to my Boss by putting him on my must watch list, but there is an excellent reason.  Peter’s series on the 18 things to do when you have a MySQL Bottleneck was the top viewed and top shared MySQL blog in 2020 from Percona.  Honestly, those who have heard Peter speak know his knowledge and deep understanding.  
  10. The HOSS!  (Percona):  The Death of Openness and Freedom? Open Source Under Attack: Ok, it may seem like a shameless plug, and maybe it is… but right now, I am very concerned about the way that corporations are dismantling open source software and turning it into something that looks like open source, but smells like a pile of poo.  So come on and watch the HOSS rant for 40 minutes about how evil corporate greed threatens our passion! 

That’s it!  Let me say FOSDEM is one of the most open and community-driven conferences each year, and this year looks no different!  I hope to see you there!