• What is time series data?

Data recorded over a period of time is time series data

• What are some examples of time series data?

Stock price over a period of time.

Weather over a period of time.

CPU usage over a period of time.

• How does time series data look like?

For CPU usage over a period of time, an example might look like this:

75% at 10am

74% at 10:10am

73% at 10:20am

• Based on the example, seems like time series data is recorded over a constant interval of time. Is that true?

Not sure.

• What are the different ways in which we can represent time series data?

One way is to just write ✍️ down the values with corresponding time values. That would be a simple written representation like the above CPU usage example. Another way is to plot the data values against time values on a graph. The time is on the X axis and the data is on few Y axis

• What is Timescale DB?

It's an open source software. It's a relational database. It runs on top of PostgreSQL as an extension

• What does Timescale mean when it says it can be used for analytical purposes too? Is it an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) DB? Or Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) DB or hybrid? HTAP

• What's the compatibility matrix of Timescale and PostgreSQL? Are all versions of Timescale compatible with all versions of PostgreSQL?

• How to install Timescale extension on PostgreSQL? Like any other extension? Or are there any exceptions?

• How easy is it to upgrade PostgreSQL and Timescale independently after installing Timescale? And after inserting data into the database? Inserting data using Timescale SQL features

• How can we use Timescale's features using SQL?

• What are hyper functions? Why are they called that? "Hyperfunctions"

• How do hyperfunctions make time series easier? Why should it be easy? Does easy come with tradeoffs?

• How would one go about storing, updating and retrieving (and deleting) time series data with vanilla PostgreSQL without Timescale extension? Can it be better than Timescale? How is Timescale 10x to 100x faster?

• Is Timescale faster than vanilla PostgreSQL, Influx DB, MongoDB? 10x faster? 100x faster? How? Also, data? Benchmark results?

• How does one store time series data in Influx DB, in MongoDB?

• "Write millions of data points per second per node. Horizontally scale to petabytes. Don’t worry about cardinality."

• How is it possible to write ✍️ millions of data points per second per node? What would be the kind and size of data, and the kind and size and architecture of the node? How come we can do horizontal scaling with Timescale DB? Is it true? Or there are catches in horizontal scaling? Also, what is cardinality? And why would anyone worry about cardinality?

• How is it possible to scale and store petabytes of data in Timescale DB?

• Pros and cons of Timescale? Usage, cost, operatioal ease etc

Goal: Teach Timescale DB to a newbie audience

About the audience: The audience have heard the term database, that's all. They don't know databases, database internals or time series database or Timescale DB

Questions that might come up from the audience:

• Why learn any of these things? Timescale DB, time series data etc?
• What is Timescale DB?
• What is time series data?
• Where is time series data used? What are it's applications?
• Where is Timescale used? What are it's applications? What are it's features?
• Which companies use Timescale DB?
• Why do companies use Timescale DB?
• Why use Timescale DB?
• What other time series databases are out there?
• Which companies use other time series databases instead of Timescale DB? Why do they use other time series databases?
• What are the differences between Timescale DB and other time series database? Is it just yet another time series database? Simply created to be flashy and valuable to sell?
• How does one build a time series database on their own? Why would anyone use Timescale DB instead of building their own time series database?
• How to install Timescale DB in a system? Does it work on Linux? Mac? Windows? Does it work on all OS platforms and architectures?
• What is PostgreSQL DB? Can we use PostgreSQL DB and not use Timescale DB and still have time series data stored in the DB and write SQL queries on top of PostgreSQL? What's the difference between vanilla PostgreSQL DB containing time series data vs Timescale DB containing time series data?
• How does one go about choosing which database to use for their application and use case? Especially for time series data but in general too (based on data model? stats on CRUD operations? what are the things to consider?)
• How does Timescale do compression of timeseries data? What's the algorithm?
• What is Promscale? https://github.com/timescale/promscale , https://github.com/timescale/promscale_extension
• What is Timescale Toolkit? https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb-toolkit

Content formats for explanations

• Visual
  • Diagrams, with and without animations
• Writing
  • Blog posts, Articles
  • Slides, Presentations