--- /dev/null
+PostgreSQL 12 Beta 1 Released
+=============================
+
+The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces that the first beta release of
+PostgreSQL 12 is now available for download. This release contains previews of
+all features that will be available in the final release of PostgreSQL 12,
+though some details of the release could change before then.
+
+In the spirit of the open source PostgreSQL community, we strongly encourage you
+to test the new features of PostgreSQL 12 in your database systems to help us
+eliminate any bugs or other issues that may exist. While we do not advise for
+you to run PostgreSQL 12 Beta 1 in your production environments, we encourage
+you to find ways to run your typical application workloads against this beta
+release.
+
+Your testing and feedback will help the community ensure that the PostgreSQL 12
+release upholds our standards of providing a stable, reliable release of the
+world's most advanced open source relational database.
+
+PostgreSQL 12 Features Highlights
+---------------------------------
+
+### Indexing Performance, Functionality, and Management
+
+PostgreSQL 12 improves the overall performance of the standard B-tree indexes
+with improvements to the overall space management of these indexes as well.
+These improvements also provide an overall reduction of bloating when using
+B-tree for specific use cases, in addition to a performance gain.
+
+Additionally, PostgreSQL 12 adds the ability to rebuild indexes concurrently,
+which lets you perform a [`REINDEX`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/sql-reindex.html) operation
+without blocking any writes to the index. The inclusion of this feature should
+help with length index rebuilds that could cause potential downtime evens when
+administration a PostgreSQL database in a production environment.
+
+PostgreSQL 12 extends the abilities of several of the specialized indexing
+mechanisms. The ability to create covering indexes, i.e. the `INCLUDE` clause
+that was introduced in PostgreSQL 11, have now been added to GiST indexes.
+SP-GiST indexes now support the ability to perform K-nearest neighbor (K-NN)
+queries for data types that support the distance (`<->`) operation.
+
+The amount of write-ahead log (WAL) overhead generated when creating a GiST,
+GIN, or SP-GiST index is also significantly reduced in PostgreSQL 12, which
+provides several benefits to the overall disk utilization of a PostgreSQL
+cluster as well as using features such as continuous archiving and streaming
+replication.
+
+### Inlined WITH queries (Common table expressions)
+
+Common table expressions (aka `WITH` queries) can now be automatically inlined
+in a query if they are a) not recursive, b) do not have any side-effects and
+c) are only referenced once in a later part of a query. These removes a known
+"optimization fence" that has existed since the introduction of the `WITH`
+clause in PostgreSQL 8.4
+
+You can force a `WITH` query to be inlined using the `NOT MATERIALIZED` clause,
+e.g.
+
+```
+WITH c AS NOT MATERIALIZED (
+ SELECT * FROM a WHERE a.x % 4
+)
+SELECT * FROM c JOIN d ON d.y = a.x;
+```
+
+### Partitioning
+
+PostgreSQL 12 improves on the performance of processing tables with thousands
+of partitions for operations that only need to use a small number of partitions.
+PostgreSQL 12 also provides improvements to the performance of both
+using `COPY` with a partitioned table as well as the `ATTACH PARTITION`
+operation. Additionally, the ability to use foreign keys to reference
+partitioned tables is now allowed in PostgreSQL 12.
+
+### JSON path queries per SQL/JSON specification
+
+PostgreSQL 12 now lets you execute [JSON path queries](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/functions-json.html#FUNCTIONS-SQLJSON-PATH)
+per the SQL/JSON specification in the SQL:2016 standard. Similar to XPath
+expressions for XML, JSON path expressions let you evaluate a variety of
+arithmetic expressions and functions in addition to comparing values within JSON
+documents.
+
+A subset of these expressions can be accelerated with GIN indexes, letting you
+execute highly performant lookups across sets of JSON data.
+
+### Collations
+
+PostgreSQL 12 now supports case-insensitive and accent-insensitive collations
+for ICU provided collations, also known as "[nondeterministic collations](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/collation.html#COLLATION-NONDETERMINISTIC)".
+When used, these collations can provide convenience for comparisons and sorts,
+but can also lead to a performance penalty depending as a collation may need to
+make additional checks on a string.
+
+### Most-common Value Statistics
+
+[`CREATE STATISTICS`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/sql-createstatistics.html),
+introduced in PostgreSQL 10 to help collect more complex statistics to improve
+query planning, now supports most-common value statistics. This leads to
+improved query plans for distributions that are non-uniform.
+
+### Generated Columns
+
+PostgreSQL 12 lets you create [generated columns](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/ddl-generated-columns.html)
+that compute their values based on the contents of other columns. This feature
+provides two types of generated columns:
+
+- Stored generated columns, which are computed on inserts and updated and are saved on disk
+- Virtual generated columns, which are computed only when a column is read as part of a query
+
+### Pluggable Table Storage Interface
+
+PostgreSQL 12 introduces the pluggable table storage interface that allows for
+the creation and use of different storage mechanisms for table storage. New
+access methods can be added to a PostgreSQL cluster using the [`CREATE ACCESS METHOD`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/sql-create-access-method.html)
+and subsequently added to tables with the new `USING` clause on `CREATE TABLE`.
+
+A table storage interface can be defined by creating a new [table access method](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/tableam.html).
+
+In PostgreSQL 12, the storage interface that is used by default is the `heap`
+access method, which is currently the only supported method.
+
+### Page Checksums
+
+The `pg_verify_checkums` command has been renamed to [`pg_checksums`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/app-pgchecksums.html)
+and now supports the ability to enable and disable page checksums across an
+PostgreSQL cluster that is offline. Previously, page checksums could only be
+enabled during the initialization of a cluster with `initdb`.
+
+### Authentication
+
+GSSAPI now supports client and server-side encryption and can be specified in
+the [`pg_hba.conf`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/auth-pg-hba-conf.html)
+file using the `hostgssenc` and `hostnogssenc` record types. PostgreSQL 12 also
+allows for LDAP servers to be discovered based on `DNS SRV` records if
+PostgreSQL was compiled with OpenLDAP.
+
+Noted Behavior Changes
+----------------------
+
+There are several changes introduced in PostgreSQL 12 that can affect the
+behavior as well as management of your ongoing operations. A few of these are
+noted below; for information about other changes, please review the
+"Migrating to Version 12" section of the [release notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/release-12.html).
+
+1. The `recovery.conf` configuration file is now merged into the main
+`postgresql.conf` file. PostgreSQL will not start if it detects that
+`recovery.conf` is present. To put PostgreSQL into a non-primary mode, you can
+use the `recovery.signal` and the `standby.signal` files.
+
+You can read more about [archive recovery](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/runtime-config-wal.html#RUNTIME-CONFIG-WAL-ARCHIVE-RECOVERY) here:
+
+https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/runtime-config-wal.html#RUNTIME-CONFIG-WAL-ARCHIVE-RECOVERY
+
+2. Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation is now enabled by default.
+
+Additional Features
+-------------------
+
+Many other new features and improvements have been added to PostgreSQL 12, some
+of which may be as or more important to specific users than what is mentioned above. Please see the [Release Notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/release-12.html) for a complete list of new and changed features.
+
+Testing for Bugs & Compatibility
+--------------------------------
+
+The stability of each PostgreSQL release greatly depends on your, the community,
+to test the upcoming version with your workloads and testing tools in order to
+find bugs and regressions before the release of PostgreSQL 12. As this is a
+Beta, minor changes to database behaviors, feature details, and APIs are still
+possible. Your feedback and testing will help determine the final tweaks on the
+new features, so please test in the near future. The quality of user testing
+helps determine when we can make a final release.
+
+A list of [open issues](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_12_Open_Items)
+is publicly available in the PostgreSQL wiki. You can
+[report bugs](https://www.postgresql.org/account/submitbug/) using this form on
+the PostgreSQL website:
+
+https://www.postgresql.org/account/submitbug/
+
+Beta Schedule
+-------------
+
+This is the first beta release of version 12. The PostgreSQL Project will
+release additional betas as required for testing, followed by one or more
+release candidates, until the final release in late 2019. For further
+information please see the [Beta Testing](https://www.postgresql.org/developer/beta/) page.
+
+Links
+-----
+
+* [Download](https://www.postgresql.org/download/)
+* [Beta Testing Information](https://www.postgresql.org/developer/beta/)
+* [PostgreSQL 12 Beta Release Notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/release-12.html)
+* [PostgreSQL 12 Open Issues](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_12_Open_Items)
+* [Submit a Bug](https://www.postgresql.org/account/submitbug/)
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