This is a test. A release candidate. What you are reading right now is the very first issue of a print magazine entirely dedicated to PostgreSQL, the world's most advanced open source database.

Launching a print magazine in 2011 may look like a weird idea… But PostgreSQL is now 25 years old and although it is one of the oldest open source projects alive, there are no print media for its large user base…

One of the goals of this project is to show you who are “the people behind the elephant”, like Bruce Momjian (one of the PostgreSQL pioneers) who talks about the past and future of the PostgreSQL project on page 8.

And the future is bright for PostgreSQL with the new 9.1 version coming in a few weeks! This major release will include may stunning features (synchronous replication, unlogged tabled, SQL/MED, etc.). In this issue, we will focus on extensions (p. 20) which are a very easy way to package modules and add-ons for your databases.

For the first issue, we have tried to answer one of the questions most asked to DBAs: “Can you deliver the data faster?” Performance tuning is indeed a vast topic! You will find general advice (p. 12), OS oriented tips (p. 16) and a query analysis method (p. 24). We hope these articles will help you in your day-to-day use of PostgreSQL.

With this magazine, we want to create an open media aimed at the PostgreSQL user base. If you like PostgreSQL, we hope you'll like this magazine too!

And of course if you have any comments or ideas, just send us an email at contact@pgmag.org! We can't wait to read your feedback…

You can have access to the magazine in various ways :