PostgreSQL 9.6 Released!

PostgreSQL 9.6, the latest version of the world's leading open source
database, was released today by the PostgreSQL Global Development
Group. This release will allow users to both scale up and scale out
high performance database workloads. New features include parallel
query, synchronous replication improvements, phrase search, and
improvements to performance and usability, as well as many more
features.

Scale Up with Parallel Query
----------------------------

Version 9.6 adds support for parallelizing some query operations,
enabling utilization of several or all of the cores on a server to
return query results faster. This release includes parallel
sequential (table) scan, aggregation, and joins. Depending on details
and available cores, parallelism can speed up big data queries by as
much as 32 times faster.

"I migrated our entire genomics data platform - all 25 billion legacy
MySQL rows of it - to a single Postgres database, leveraging the row
compression abilities of the JSONB datatype, and the excellent GIN,
BRIN, and B-tree indexing modes. Now with version 9.6, I expect to
harness the parallel query functionality to allow even greater
scalability for queries against our rather large tables," said Mike
Sofen, Chief Database Architect, Synthetic Genomics.

Scale Out with Synchronous Replication and postgres_fdw
-------------------------------------------------------

Two new options have been added to PostgreSQL's synchronous
replication feature which allow it to be used to maintain consistent
reads across database clusters. First, it now allows configuring
groups of synchronous replicas. Second, the "remote_apply" mode
creates a more consistent view of data across multiple nodes. These
features support using built-in replication to maintain a set of
"identical" nodes for load-balancing read workloads.

The PostgreSQL-to-PostgreSQL data federation driver, postgres_fdw, has
new capabilities to execute work on remote servers. By "pushing down"
sorts, joins, and batch data updates, users can distribute workload
across multiple PostgreSQL servers. These features should soon be
added to other FDW drivers.

"With the capabilities of remote JOIN, UPDATE and DELETE, Foreign Data
Wrappers are now a complete solution for sharing data between other
databases and PostgreSQL. For example, PostgreSQL can be used to
handle data input going to two or more different kinds of databases,"
said Julyanto Sutandang, Director of Business Solutions at Equnix.

Better Text Search with Phrases
-------------------------------

PostgreSQL's full text search feature now supports "phrase search."
This lets users search for exact phrases, or for words within a
specified proximity to each other, using fast GIN indexes. Combined
with new features for fine-tuning text search options, PostgreSQL is
the superior option for "hybrid search" which puts together
relational, JSON, and full text searching.

Smoother, Faster, and Easier to Use
-----------------------------------

Thanks to feedback and testing by PostgreSQL users with high-volume
production databases, the project has been able to improve many
aspects of performance and usability in this release. Replication,
aggregation, indexing, sorting, and stored procedures have all been
made more efficient, and PostgreSQL now makes better use of resources
with recent Linux kernels. Administration overhead for large tables
and complex workloads was also reduced, especially through
improvements to VACUUM.

Other Features
--------------

Version 9.6 has many other features added over the last year of
development, among them:

* New system views and functions: pg_stat_wal_receiver, pg_visbility,
pg_config, pg_blocking_pids, pg_notification_queue_usage
* Command progress reporting support
* Cascade support for installing extensions
* pg_basebackup concurrency and replication slot support
* Wait Event support
* View editing and crosstabs in psql
* User-defined expiration for old snapshots
* Index-only scans for partial indexes

Additionally, the project has changed and improved the API for binary
hot backups. As such, developers of custom backup software for
PostgreSQL should do additional testing around the new version. See
the Release Notes for more detail.

Links
-----

* Downloads:
https://www.postgresql.org/downloads
* Release Notes:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/release-9-6.html
* What's New in 9.6:
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/NewIn96
* Press Kit:
https://www.postgresql.org/about/press/presskit96

--
Dave Page
PostgreSQL Core Team
http://www.postgresql.org/