Choose the Right Azure Infrastructure to Improve Postgres Performance by Over 60% | POSETTE 2026

Andrew Ruffin explains how to choose Azure infrastructure for PostgreSQL workloads, focusing on VM family selection, benchmarking results, and cost/performance trade-offs.

Overview

This POSETTE 2026 talk covers practical options for running PostgreSQL on Microsoft Azure, with an emphasis on selecting the right underlying infrastructure to improve performance (reported as over 60%) while keeping costs under control.

What the session covers

• An overview of AMD-powered infrastructure options available on Azure
• How to find and evaluate AMD-based VM options for PostgreSQL workloads
• VM family considerations for Postgres performance
• Benchmark results and how they translate into cost savings
• Deployment decision points:
  • IaaS (running PostgreSQL on Azure Virtual Machines)
  • PaaS (managed PostgreSQL options on Azure)
• Security-related infrastructure considerations, including confidential computing
• “AI-ready” Postgres-related capabilities and hardware features mentioned in the session:
  • pgvector
  • DiskANN
  • AVX-512

Video chapters (from the description)

• 00:00 – Music & introduction
• 00:43 – AMD & Azure infrastructure overview
• 02:43 – Finding AMD-powered VM options
• 03:53 – VM families for PostgreSQL workloads
• 07:36 – Open-source enabling & impact
• 08:59 – Benchmark results and cost savings
• 12:20 – IAAS vs PAAS deployment choices
• 14:28 – Confidential compute & security
• 17:06 – AI-ready features: pgvector, DiskANN, AVX-512
• 21:04 – Key takeaways & resources

Links and resources

• POSETTE conference site: https://posetteconf.com
• POSETTE talks playlist: https://aka.ms/posette-playlist
• Microsoft for PostgreSQL on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft-for-postgresql