Parallel query will probably win for sexiest new feature (<i>rightfully so!</i>) but remote apply is very useful in the real world. It will greatly simplify reading newly written data off replicas: <a href="http://michael.otacoo.com/postgresql-2/postgres-9-6-feature-highlight-remote-apply/" rel="nofollow">http://michael.otacoo.com/postgresql-2/postgres-9-6-feature-...</a>
From the Release Notes:<p>Major enhancements in PostgreSQL 9.6 include:<p>Parallel sequential scans, joins and aggregates<p>Elimination of repetitive scanning of old data by autovacuum<p>Synchronous replication now allows multiple standby servers for increased reliability<p>Full-text search for phrases<p>Support for remote joins, sorts, and updates in postgres_fdw<p>Substantial performance improvements, especially in the area of improving scalability on many-CPU servers
This is excellent, the read-balancing consistency is a huge feature, and one we've been waiting for as trying to do read balancing without it is jumping through way too many hoops (unless data consistency just isn't your thing).
and 9.7 have started planning<p>* [ "asynchronous and vectorized execution" ]<p><a href="http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CA+Tgmobx8su_bYtAa3DgrqB+R7xZG6kHRj0ccMUUshKAQVftww@mail.gmail.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CA+Tgmobx8su_bYtAa3Dgrq...</a>
The features that I'll personally probably enjoy the most are really the FDW join pushdown work, parallel query. (though it's still early days for the parallel stuff)<p>..and the thing that's a killer feature for many larger databases, the freeze map. Not having to FREEZE things all the time is a godsend.
I love new features in Postgres, but I hate upgrading. Transition, especially for dev environment is always way too complex and not obvious at all.<p>If there is one feature I wish PG had, it is recognizing old format db and offering one command that can in place upgrade damn db, without me googling it every time.
UPSERT from previous release plus
Parallel sequential scans, joins and aggregates and
Full text search for phrases once 9.6 is ready
will make PG almost perfect :)
Is there something specifically interesting in the 9.6 release that makes it more noteworthy than other releases? I enjoy reading PostgreSQL release announcements, as I myself haven't used it but have plans to do some testing with is when some time free up, but I'm a bit confused as to why a <i>beta</i> release announcement is getting so much attention.
PG 9.6 Beta is available for testing at our Aiven.io Cloud Database service: <a href="http://blog.aiven.io/2016/05/help-test-postgresql-96-via-aiven.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.aiven.io/2016/05/help-test-postgresql-96-via-aiv...</a>