In the one-day, hands-on workshop on PostgreSQL for the SQL Server Database Professional, you'll learn how to apply your existing SQL Server knowledge to become productive with PostgreSQL quickly, and understand where the two platforms are similar, where they differ fundamentally, and how to translate your skills across both.

The focus of this workshop is to give experienced SQL Server professionals a guided, hands-on path to PostgreSQL competency in a single day, covering architecture, query language, development patterns, indexing, administration, and advanced features.

You'll start by understanding how the PostgreSQL engine differs from SQL Server at an architectural level, then progress through data types, T-SQL-to-PL/pgSQL translation, index strategies and query tuning, administration and security, and finally advanced features and migration tooling, with a focus on how to extrapolate what you have learned into production workloads at your organization.

In this workshop you'll learn:

• How PostgreSQL's architecture (process model, MVCC, WAL, cluster vs. database) differs from SQL Server's and what that means for day-to-day work
• How to map SQL Server data types, schema objects, and DDL patterns to their PostgreSQL equivalents
• How to translate T-SQL stored procedures, functions, and scripts into PL/pgSQL, handling syntax, error handling, and control-flow differences
• How PostgreSQL's rich index ecosystem (B-tree, GIN, GiST, BRIN, partial, expression) compares to SQL Server indexes, and how to read and tune EXPLAIN ANALYZE output
• How to perform common DBA tasks in PostgreSQL: user/role management, backup and restore with pg_dump/pg_basebackup, VACUUM, and monitoring with pg_stat_* views
• How to leverage PostgreSQL-specific advanced features including JSONB, extensions (PostGIS, pg_trgm, pgvector), Foreign Data Wrappers, and migration tooling

The goal of this workshop is to train SQL Server professionals, DBAs, developers, and architects, who need to support, design, or migrate to PostgreSQL workloads.

The concepts and skills taught in this workshop form the starting points for:

• Database Administrators and Architects who are evaluating or migrating workloads from SQL Server to PostgreSQL (on-premises or cloud managed services such as Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Amazon RDS, or Google Cloud SQL).
• Application Developers who write T-SQL today and need to understand PL/pgSQL, connection drivers, and PostgreSQL-specific query patterns.
• Data Engineers who work across mixed-platform environments and need to bridge SQL Server and PostgreSQL for data pipelines and ELT workflows.

Attendee Requirements:

• You must provide your own laptop computer (Windows or Mac) for this hands-on workshop.
• All other requirements will be posted two (2) weeks prior to the conference.