PostgreSQL 16 Released — Logical Replication from Standby

PostgreSQL 16 delivers operational improvements that directly benefit production database administrators — logical replication from standbys, SIMD acceleration and bulk loading improvements.

Logical Replication from Standby

Previously logical replication had to originate from the primary server. PostgreSQL 16 allows standbys to act as logical replication sources — reducing load on the primary.

-- On standby server
ALTER SYSTEM SET wal_level = logical;
SELECT pg_reload_conf();

-- Create publication on standby
CREATE PUBLICATION standby_pub FOR ALL TABLES;

SIMD CPU Acceleration

PostgreSQL 16 uses AVX-512 and other SIMD instructions for faster text search, checksums and JSON processing — automatic if your CPU supports it.

-- Check if SIMD is being used
EXPLAIN ANALYZE SELECT * FROM large_table WHERE text_col LIKE '%search%';

Bulk Loading Improvements

-- COPY is significantly faster in v16
COPY large_table FROM '/data/import.csv' WITH (FORMAT csv, HEADER true);

-- New: COPY TO with WHERE clause
COPY (SELECT * FROM orders WHERE status = 'completed') TO '/exports/completed.csv';

pg_stat_io — New I/O Statistics

-- New view for detailed I/O monitoring
SELECT * FROM pg_stat_io WHERE backend_type = 'client backend';

Conclusion

PostgreSQL 16 is a must-upgrade for high-traffic database servers. Our team provides database performance tuning and management.