Five stages. Fifteen assessed competencies.

Explain how PostgreSQL processes, memory, data directories, clusters, databases, schemas, catalogs, and WAL interact.

Applied lab

Identify important instance components and explain how a committed change reaches durable storage.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Architecture and System Model

Use suitable data types, constraints, DDL, DML, transactions, rollback, and safe query practices.

Applied lab

Repair seeded inconsistency and prove both the repaired rows and constraint behaviour meet the requirement.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

Safe SQL and Data Integrity

Apply ownership, role membership, least privilege, authentication concepts, pg_hba.conf, and access auditing.

Applied lab

Demonstrate that an application role has only required access and that an operator retains audited recovery access.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Roles and Access Security

Choose B-tree and specialist indexes using selectivity, workload, multicolumn order, expressions, storage cost, and write overhead.

Applied lab

Recommend an index that improves the supplied workload while explaining its write and storage cost.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Index Design

Interpret EXPLAIN, EXPLAIN ANALYZE, estimates, scans, joins, sorts, statistics, and common plan failures.

Applied lab

Compare a baseline and revised plan, identify the expensive operation, and show the returned result remains correct.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

Query Plan and Performance Diagnosis

Reason about isolation, blocking, lock modes, long transactions, deadlocks, and safe intervention.

Applied lab

Identify the root blocking transaction, its owner and impact, then use the least disruptive safe intervention.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Concurrency and Locking

Manage connection lifecycles, pooling, configuration scopes, memory settings, reloads, restarts, and resource trade-offs.

Applied lab

Resolve connection exhaustion without masking a leak or setting a memory budget the host cannot sustain.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Configuration and Connections

Explain tuple visibility, dead tuples, freezing, transaction ID risk, vacuum tuning, and bloat diagnosis.

Applied lab

Explain a table's growth with visibility and maintenance evidence, then restore an appropriate vacuum response.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL MVCC and Vacuum Operations

Establish workload baselines, interpret catalog and monitoring signals, recognise saturation, forecast capacity, and design actionable alerts.

Applied lab

Produce a health report that distinguishes observed saturation, forecast risk, and a prioritised operational response.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Monitoring and Capacity

Reason about WAL generation, checkpoints, durability, write pressure, disk layout, and safe storage decisions.

Applied lab

Attribute storage pressure to its source and propose a safe response that protects durability and recovery options.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL WAL and Storage Operations

Select logical or physical backup approaches, define retention, connect RPO/RTO to implementation, and collect evidence of recoverability.

Applied lab

Correct a backup policy against stated RPO and RTO, then show evidence that the chosen artefact is usable.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Backup Strategy and Validation

Execute restore workflows, choose recovery targets and timelines, verify recovered state, and plan rehearsals.

Applied lab

Recover a disposable cluster to a defensible target immediately before a known harmful data event and verify the state.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Restore and Point-in-Time Recovery

Diagnose streaming replication and slot behaviour, evaluate synchronous trade-offs, interpret lag, promote safely, and avoid split brain.

Applied lab

Locate the replication pipeline boundary causing lag and make a defensible failover recommendation.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Replication and Failover Readiness

Triage impact, preserve evidence, interpret competing signals, mitigate proportionately, escalate clearly, and support post-incident learning.

Applied lab

Produce a concise impact assessment, evidence trail, proportionate mitigation, and handover for a multi-symptom incident.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Incident Diagnosis and Response

Plan maintenance, define rollback criteria, evaluate extension compatibility, execute upgrades or migrations, validate outcomes, and maintain runbooks.

Applied lab

Prepare a change record with compatibility checks, objective rollback criteria, verified outcome, and useful handover.

Assessment

80% knowledge threshold · Critical safety gates

Module certificate

PostgreSQL Safe Change and Upgrade Operations