You make a small change to your table, adding a single row, and it affects data lake performance because, due to the way they work, a new file has to be written that contains one row, and then a bunch of metadata has to be written. This is very inefficient, because formats like Parquet really don't want to store a single row, they want to store a million rows.
Neo4j Aura Agent is an end-to-end platform for creating agents, connecting them to knowledge graphs, and deploying to production in minutes. In this post, we'll explore the features of Neo4j Aura Agent that make this all possible, along with links to coded examples to get hands-on with the platform.
I began by creating a soft link locally from my blog's repo of posts to the src/pages/posts of a new Astro site. My blog currently has 6742 posts (all high quality I assure you). Each one looks like so: --- layout: post title: "Creating Reddit Summaries with URL Context and Gemini" date: "2026-02-09T18:00:00" categories: ["development"] tags: ["python","generative ai"] banner_image: /images/banners/cat_on_papers2.jpg permalink: /2026/02/09/creating-reddit-summaries-with-gemini description: Using Gemini APIs to create a summary of a subreddit. --- Interesting content no one will probably read here...
There is a growing emphasis on database compliance today due to the stricter enforcement of compliance rules and regulations to safeguard user privacy. For example, GDPR fines can reach £17.5 million or 4% of annual global turnover (the higher of the two applies). Besides the direct monetary implications, companies also need to prioritize compliance to protect their brand reputation and achieve growth.
For a long time I wanted to document something I have done many times in production systems but never explained clearly: using Django ORM as a standalone module to connect to an existing database. In my work I have often dealt with legacy systems where the only reliable source of truth was the database itself. In those situations, Django ORM became my Swiss army knife.
But it still contains useful things and can be upgraded to from MySQL 8.4 LTS; the MySQL Configurator automatically does the upgrade without user intervention during MSI installations on Windows. The major changes include: A new Vector datatype is supported in CREATE and ALTER statements. JavaScript Stored Programs, which support JavaScript-based stored programs and functions, has come to MySQL Enterprise Edition. JavaScript Stored Programs can call SQL, and SQL can call them.
Developers have spent the past decade trying to forget databases exist. Not literally, of course. We still store petabytes. But for the average developer, the database became an implementation detail; an essential but staid utility layer we worked hard not to think about. We abstracted it behind object-relational mappers (ORM). We wrapped it in APIs. We stuffed semi-structured objects into columns and told ourselves it was flexible.
Google has overhauled Firestore Enterprise edition's query engine, adding Pipeline operations that let developers chain together multiple query stages for complex aggregations, array operations, and regex matching. The update removes Firestore's longstanding query limitations and makes indexes optional, putting the database on par with other major NoSQL platforms. Pipeline operations work through sequential stages that transform data inside the database.
The main advantage of going the Multi-Cloud way is that organizations can "put their eggs in different baskets" and be more versatile in their approach to how they do things. For example, they can mix it up and opt for a cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution when it comes to the database, while going the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) route for their application endeavors.
Databricks today announced the general availability of Lakebase on AWS, a new database architecture that separates compute and storage. The managed serverless Postgres service is designed to help organizations build faster without worrying about infrastructure management. When databases link compute and storage, every query must use the same CPU and memory resources. This can cause a single heavy query to affect all other operations. By separating compute and storage, resources automatically scale with the actual load.
When I manage infrastructure for major events (whether it is the Olympics, a Premier League match or a season finale) I am dealing with a "thundering herd" problem that few systems ever face. Millions of users log in, browse and hit "play" within the same three-minute window. But this challenge isn't unique to media. It is the same nightmare that keeps e-commerce CTOs awake before Black Friday or financial systems architects up during a market crash. The fundamental problem is always the same: How do you survive when demand exceeds capacity by an order of magnitude?
"The job didn't fail. It just... never finished." That was the worst part. No errors.No stack traces.Just a Spark job running forever in production - blocking downstream pipelines, delaying reports, and waking up-on-call engineers at 2 AM. This is the story of how I diagnosed a real Spark performance issue in production and fixed it drastically, not by adding more machines - but by understanding Spark properly.
A new open-source project, VillageSQL, has been introduced as a tracking fork of MySQL aimed at expanding extensibility and addressing feature gaps increasingly relevant to AI and agent-based workloads. Announced by founder Dominic Preuss, VillageSQL Server for MySQL is positioned as a drop-in replacement that maintains compatibility with upstream MySQL while adding a structured extension framework. The alpha release is now available for experimentation.
