Webinar | Configuring High Availability for Mission Critical Applications in Postgres with Pgpool and pg_cirrus

High availability is a key requirement for mission-critical PostgreSQL workloads. Pgpool provides advanced capabilities such as connection pooling, load balancing, automatic failover, and query caching to ensure resilient and efficient database operations. With pg_cirrus, deploying production-grade HA clusters becomes faster and easier through automation that streamlines setup and ensures consistency.

On 13 August 2025, Semab Tariq, PostgreSQL Consultant at Stormatics, and Muhammad Usama, Principal Engineer at Microsoft gave a detailed session on how to deploy a production-grade cluster using these two tools.

This session covered the following:

• → Pgpool’s HA features: connection pooling, load balancing, automatic failover, and query caching
• → Identifying and removing single points of failure in PostgreSQL clusters
• → Automating production-ready HA cluster deployment with pg_cirrus
• → Best practices for running resilient, always-on Postgres in enterprise environments

This session is designed for teams managing production PostgreSQL systems who want to build reliable, high-performing, and always-available database clusters.

About the Speakers

Muhammad Usama
Principal Engineer at Microsoft

Muhammad Usama is a major contributor and committer to the Pgpool-II open-source project, where he has driven numerous performance and high availability enhancements. With 20 years of professional software development experience, Usama has been working with PostgreSQL since 2006.
He began his career focused on system-level embedded development before moving into open-source technologies. After joining EnterpriseDB in 2006, he shifted his focus to open-source development, contributing extensively to both PostgreSQL and Pgpool-II. At HighGo Software, Usama was a leading PostgreSQL architect and played a key role in launching the IvorySQL project—an Oracle-compatible, open-source PostgreSQL distribution.
Most recently, Usama served as PostgreSQL Engineering Lead at Percona, where he led the team that developed the open-source Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) extension for PostgreSQL. He is now a Principal Engineer at Microsoft, continuing his commitment to advancing PostgreSQL and open-source innovation.

Semab Tariq
PostgreSQL Consultant, Stormatics

Semab Tariq is a PostgreSQL Consultant at Stormatics, bringing over 8 years of experience in DevOps, software packaging, and machine learning. He began his career as a DevOps Engineer, focusing on the packaging of numerous PostgreSQL-related tools. His contributions include creating and maintaining PostgreSQL community installers for Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as PgAdmin installers during his tenure at 2ndQuadrant and later at EnterpriseDB.
Following this, Semab transitioned into a more specialized role in PostgreSQL by joining Stormatics. He now provides expert-level PostgreSQL consulting services, with a strong emphasis on building high-availability architectures for mission-critical applications and implementing robust disaster recovery solutions. He is also experienced in performance tuning and optimization of PostgreSQL across various platforms.
In addition to his consulting work, Semab is an active member of the PostgreSQL community. He frequently speaks at international PostgreSQL conferences, writes technical blogs, and conducts webinars to share his expertise.