It’s Not About the Database Operator, It’s About the Deployment
11-11, 10:05–10:35 (MST), Flex Space

We’ve all heard the saying “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey,” well the same can be said of database Operators. It’s not about which Operator you are using to deploy your database to Kubernetes it’s about what you are trying to accomplish with what you are deploying.

A quick search on OperatorHub.io lists 49 Database focused Operators and 11 PostgreSQL operators. Each have their own speciality and each have their own lifecycle. Choosing one today as it’s best fitting may no longer be the case soon. I argue that ranking one as better than the next is ineffective, instead you should be focused on the ‘what do I want to do,’ with my database deployment.

This talk will focus on how to use the newest concepts in scaleable database deployment to stop worrying about the “how” and refocus again on the “what”.


Observation 1: More companies are considering deploying databases in k8s as an alternative to cloud native deployments. In such times when it’s about the right moment to ask whether we focus on the right things when we think about deploying to k8s. The benefit of operators is that they are not super hard to create, which leads to a very rich environment and an overwhelming selection of operators for some technologies. Choosing the right operator for PostgreSQL is a challenge on its own.

Observation 2: Developers love using managed databases provided by cloud vendors. They are easy and approachable. They take away the deployment struggle and make engineers more effective. That being said, they’re expensive and limited to the particular cloud vendor.

We lack an enterprise grade product that based on these two observations brings ease of use to the users while being based on k8s and not requiring the DevOps/SRE/DBA team to have a doctorate in database operator selection. Demonstrated based on PostgreSQL as the most popular open source database and one that has a vast competition of Operators.

Jan is a Senior Product Manager at Percona, leading the products for PostgreSQL. He has vast experience in the development, deployment and maintenance of enterprise systems. Professionally, he is passionate about simple solutions that solve complicated problems and user experience that maximizes the product potential. Privately he is a foodie by day, a tech geek into graphic novels, video and board games by night and parent/spouse in between. Having spent already almost two years in Percona, most of us learned that he has enough energy and topics to fill in any space and time

Meet Peter Szczepaniak, your friendly Senior Product Manager at Percona. With over 15 years in the IT industry, Peter is your go-to expert for User Experience and highly technical products based on Kubernetes. His knack for seamless digital solutions comes from a Bachelor's in IT from the University of Gdansk, backed by an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for user-centric design. Get ready to dive into the world of impactful products with Peter!