What went wrong (& what went right) with AIO with Andres Freund | Talking Postgres Ep31
Six years, a prototype, and a brief multi-layered descent into “wronger and wronger” design—what does it take to land a major architectural change in Postgres? In Episode 31 of Talking Postgres, Andres Freund—major contributor, Postgres committer, and lead of the Asynchronous I/O project—shares the wins, the missteps, and why he thinks AIO definitely took too long. We dig into io_uring in Linux, direct I/O, streaming reads, technical leadership, and exactly when is the right time to stop working on a prototype. If you’ve ever wondered how big architectural changes happen, or why they sometimes take years, this episode is for you.Chapters:
⏩ 00:00 Music & introduction
⏩ 04:04 Why AIO for Postgres
⏩ 05:14 io_uring in Linux
⏩ 06:01 Two important changes afoot
⏩ 11:07 Streaming I/O in PG17
⏩ 14:34 It definitely took too long!
⏩ 17:44 CI as key enabler
⏩ 21:45 Callbacks and dead-ends
⏩ 26:49 WAL writes and AIO
⏩ 28:56 Multi-layered descent into wronger and wronger design
⏩ 31:45 Band-aids upon band-aids
⏩ 34:07 Tolerance for uncertainty
⏩ 39:14 What's in PG 18 and what's coming next
⏩ 45:54 How can people get involved with AIO
⏩ 48:56 The thing Andres feels best about
⏩ 52:43 Convincing a lot of people
⏩ 57:05 XZ Utils backdoor discovered because of Postgres AIO
⏩ 1:05:23 Taking care of yourself
📜 Full transcript available at:
https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/what-went-wrong-what-went-right-with-aio-with-andres-freund/transcript
✅ Listen to more episodes of Talking Postgres:
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Links mentioned in this episode:
🔹 Podcast Ep08 of Talking Postgres with Andres Freund & Heikki Linnakangas: https://youtu.be/V8bw0UepeuI?feature=shared
🔹 PostgreSQL 18 release notes: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/release-18.html
🔹 PostgreSQL 18 RC 1 Released: https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-18-rc-1-released-3130/
🔹 Wikipedia page: Linux kernel system call io_uring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_uring
🔹 Video: Talk about AIO at PGConfdev 2025 by Andres Freund: https://youtu.be/GR5v9DHiS8w?si=l_JbcyoYOhQqgaYh
🔹 Commit to add core asynchronous I/O infrastructure to Postgres: https://github.com/postgres/postgres/commit/da7226993fd4b73d8b40abb7167d124eada97f2e
🔹 Upcoming talk at PGConf NYC about AIO in PG 18 and Beyond: https://postgresql.us/events/pgconfus2025/schedule/session/2079-aio-in-pg-18-and-beyond/
🔹 Upcoming talk at PGConf EU in Latvia about AIO in PG 18 and Beyond: https://www.postgresql.eu/events/pgconfeu2025/schedule/session/7001-aio-in-pg-18-and-beyond/
🔹 Wiki page: AIO project in PostgreSQL with state of project & work still to be done: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/AIO
🔹 Wikipedia page: XZ Utils backdoor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor
🔹 Join the PostgreSQL Hacking Discord server: https://discord.gg/bx2G9KWyrY
🔹 Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep32 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Oct 08, 2025: https://aka.ms/TalkingPostgres-Ep32-cal
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