Percona Live 2026 is Back in the Bay Area — Here’s Why You Don’t Want to Miss It

We’re thrilled to welcome the open source database community back in person for Percona Live 2026, taking place May 27–29 in the Bay Area. After the energy of past events, there’s nothing like being together again — swapping war stories over coffee, sketching architectures on napkins, and learning from the people building and running databases at serious scale. The full schedule is live now, and it’s shaping up to be our most hands-on, community-driven event yet.

Save your seat →  Register for Percona Live 2026

Keynotes You Won’t Want to Miss

This year’s keynote lineup reflects where the open source database world is heading — AI in the workflow, community ownership of the MySQL ecosystem, and extending the databases we already rely on. A few sessions we’re especially excited about:

Andy Pavlo, Carnegie Mellon University — “Using LLMs to Develop and Optimize Database Systems” (Wednesday, opening keynote). Andy always brings sharp, evidence-based thinking, and this year he’s digging into how large language models are genuinely changing how we build and tune database systems — separating real wins from the hype.

Dominic Preuss, VillageSQL — “Driving Innovation in MySQL with Extensions” (Thursday keynote). Dominic will share VillageSQL’s vision for a more extensible MySQL, followed later in the day by his deep-dive breakout “Design Considerations for a Simple Extension Framework for MySQL” — a great pairing if you care about the future of MySQL.

Heather VanCura, Oracle — “The Path to MySQL Open Innovation” (Thursday keynote). Heather brings years of community-building experience to the stage, with a look at how open governance and community input are shaping MySQL’s next chapter.

Vadim Tkachenko, Percona — “OurSQL Foundation — The Future of the MySQL Ecosystem” (Wednesday keynote). Vadim will introduce the newly-formed OurSQL Foundation and what a truly community-led MySQL future can look like. If you care about where MySQL is going next, this one’s essential.

And that’s just a taste — we’ve also got talks from engineers at Google, Meta, Pinterest, PayPal, Apple, Amazon, Plaid, and more across MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Valkey, ClickHouse, and Kubernetes-native databases. The full lineup is on the agenda page.

Friday is Hands-On: Roll Up Your Sleeves

New this year: we’re making Friday, May 29 an all-day hands-on workshop day. These aren’t lectures — they’re real, practical deep-dives where you’ll leave with working skills (and working configs). Bring your laptop.

• Beyond apt install: Building Safe MySQL Test Environments with Sveta Smirnova (Percona)
• Build Real-Time Discovery and Recommendations with Valkey Search with Karthik Subbarao and Allen Samuels (Valkey)
• Building Highly Scalable PostgreSQL Platforms: Internals, Tuning, HA Automation with Avinash Vallarapu (HexaCluster)
• Hands-On PMM 3: Building a Professional Database Observability Stack with Michael Coburn and Tibor Korocz (Percona)
• MongoDB on Kubernetes 101: A Hands-On Guide with Michal Nosek (Percona)
• Migrating to MySQL High Availability with PXC with Matthew Boehm (Percona)
• Postgres DBA Accelerator with Alastair Turner (Percona) and Elizabeth Christensen (Snowflake)
• Cache Me If You Can, Valkey Edition with Roberto and Adrian Luna Rojas (Valkey)

Why Be There in Person

The hallway conversations at Percona Live are honestly half the value. You’ll meet the people behind the tools you run every day, compare notes with DBAs and engineers solving the same problems you are, and probably walk away with a few ideas you’ll put into production next week. We’re genuinely excited to be back together — and we’d love to see you there.

Ready to join us? Register for Percona Live 2026