PostgreSQL Archives

Tech Optimizer

April 24, 2025

TecentDB PostgreSQL will provide full support for PG 17

TencentDB for PostgreSQL has introduced robust security measures including data encryption, Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) isolation, and process monitoring for compliance with international standards. PostgreSQL 17.0 features enhanced logical replication with slot failover, performance optimizations such as batch I/O page read/write and improved Write-Ahead Logging, and operational enhancements like incremental backups and a transaction timeout parameter. Tencent has developed features for resource management, including fine-grained multi-tenant resource management with CPU resource isolation and process-level monitoring, as well as SQL throttling. Cold/hot data separation solutions include the 'cos_fdw' plugin for accessing cold data and the 'starocks_fdw' plugin for integrating with the StarRocks analytics engine. Security auditing has been improved with an Express Edition for basic needs and an Advanced Edition for broader audit coverage. These enhancements aim to balance performance and cost, maximize resource efficiency, and strengthen compliance.

Tech Optimizer

April 24, 2025

Meet Xata Agent: An Open Source Agent for Proactive PostgreSQL Monitoring, Automated Troubleshooting, and Seamless DevOps Integration

Xata Agent is an open-source AI assistant designed for PostgreSQL database site reliability engineering. It monitors logs and performance metrics to identify issues like slow queries and unusual connection counts, helping to maintain database integrity and performance. The tool automates tasks such as vacuuming and indexing and provides actionable recommendations through diagnostic playbooks and read-only SQL routines. The architecture is built as a Next.js application using TypeScript, organized in a monorepo structure. Developers can set up their environment using Node, install dependencies, and configure a local PostgreSQL instance with Docker Compose. Production deployment involves using Docker images and configuring environment variables in a production file. Key functionalities include proactive monitoring, configuration tuning, performance troubleshooting, safe diagnostics, cloud integration, alerting, LLM flexibility, and playbook customization. Developers can create new tools and integrate them into playbooks for cohesive workflows. Future plans include custom playbooks, support for Model Context Protocol, evaluation harnesses, approval workflows, and a managed cloud edition. The architecture promotes extensibility and community contributions, standardizing incident response and reducing human error in database management.

Tech Optimizer

April 21, 2025

Best practices to handle AWS DMS tasks during PostgreSQL upgrades

The AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) provides a managed solution for migrating and replicating databases to AWS, supporting both homogeneous and heterogeneous migrations. It allows seamless data migration from PostgreSQL databases to any supported target and vice versa. Open-source PostgreSQL regularly releases new versions, and Amazon RDS aims to support these within five months. Upgrading PostgreSQL instances is essential for security and compliance. Minor version upgrades focus on security and bug fixes without adding new functionalities, while major upgrades can change system tables and data formats. AWS DMS tasks require careful management during PostgreSQL upgrades. For minor upgrades, ongoing DMS tasks should be stopped and then resumed post-upgrade. For major upgrades, replication slots must be dropped before the upgrade, which will invalidate ongoing DMS tasks. After the upgrade, a new CDC-only task should be created to resume data migration. Minor version upgrades of the target PostgreSQL database do not affect AWS DMS CDC tasks, but major upgrades require stopping the DMS task, performing the upgrade, and ensuring compatibility with the replication instance before resuming the task.

Tech Optimizer

April 21, 2025

PostgreSQL 12 High Availability Cookbook

The server-class CPU market is primarily dominated by AMD and Intel, both of which offer dedicated lines of CPUs for server applications. AMD's Threadripper chips are strong competitors to Intel's Xeon processors, with AMD often providing higher core counts that enhance performance for multi-threaded applications. The price-to-performance ratios of both manufacturers are relatively comparable, but each has unique strengths. Prospective buyers are encouraged to research using resources like AnandTech, Tom's Hardware, and the official sites of Intel and AMD for benchmarks and comparative analyses.

Tech Optimizer

April 16, 2025

Transition a pivot query that includes dynamic columns from SQL Server to PostgreSQL

The text discusses the process of migrating workloads from SQL Server to PostgreSQL, specifically focusing on the implementation of the PIVOT function. It highlights the limitations of using CASE WHEN statements in SQL Server for dynamic reports and introduces the crosstab function from PostgreSQL’s tablefunc extension as a more flexible alternative. The solution involves creating a PostgreSQL function called get_dynamic_pivot_data that utilizes crosstab to dynamically generate columns based on query results. To test the function, users need to provision either Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL or Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL and install a PostgreSQL client tool. For those using C#, .NET SDK 8 and Visual Studio Code must be installed. The text provides detailed steps for creating sample tables and stored procedures in SQL Server, along with the equivalent setup in PostgreSQL, including the use of the crosstab function and cursor management. It emphasizes the need for security measures, such as storing database credentials in AWS Secrets Manager. The author encourages sharing experiences related to implementing PIVOT functionality in PostgreSQL.

Tech Optimizer

April 13, 2025

Springtail: $2.5 Million (Pre-Seed) Raised To Scale PostgreSQL Performance

Springtail has secured a million pre-seed funding round led by Gradient, Google's early-stage AI fund, with contributions from Octave and various angel investors. The company offers a cloud-based distributed database solution that integrates with Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, addressing scalability challenges by offloading and scaling read execution without requiring extensive application changes or data migrations. Springtail's architecture allows for horizontal scaling of read-heavy workloads through on-demand read replicas that share a common storage layer, enabling independent scaling of compute resources. The co-founders, Craig Soules and Garth Goodson, have backgrounds in distributed systems and previous experience in successful software enterprises. Springtail claims to potentially save developers up to 58% on PostgreSQL read replication costs compared to Amazon RDS.

Tech Optimizer

April 11, 2025

MongoDB (MDB) Retains Value Despite PostgreSQL Competition

Stifel has reaffirmed its Buy rating for MongoDB (MDB) with a revised target price of , citing increased competition from PostgreSQL. 80% of surveyed customers believe they can sustain growth using both MongoDB and PostgreSQL. Analysts project an average price target of .36 for MongoDB within the next year, indicating an upside potential of 84.16% from the current price of .47. The consensus among 38 brokerage firms gives MongoDB an average recommendation of 2.0, or "Outperform." GuruFocus estimates the GF Value for MongoDB to be .07 within a year, suggesting a potential upside of 168.2% from the current price.

Tech Optimizer

April 11, 2025

Announcing pgvector 0.8.0 support in Aurora PostgreSQL

Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition has integrated support for pgvector 0.8.0, an open-source extension for storing vector embeddings in databases, enhancing its capabilities for generative AI applications, particularly in semantic search and retrieval-augmented generation. The new version improves the PostgreSQL query planner's index selection, elevating query performance and search result quality. It refines data filtering through WHERE clauses and joins, and features iterative index scans to prevent overfiltering, ensuring sufficient query results. Additionally, pgvector 0.8.0 enhances performance for searching and constructing HNSW indexes. This version is available in Amazon Aurora clusters on PostgreSQL versions 16.8, 15.12, 14.17, and 13.20 or higher, across all AWS Regions except China. Users can upgrade by modifying their DB cluster settings.

Tech Optimizer

April 10, 2025

Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Bases now supports hybrid search for Aurora PostgreSQL and MongoDB Atlas vector stores

Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Bases has expanded to support hybrid search for knowledge bases created with Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and MongoDB Atlas vector stores. This enhancement allows for a dual-query approach that combines semantic and full-text search methodologies, improving the relevance of search results. Users can access hybrid search through the Knowledge Base APIs or the Bedrock console, where they can select hybrid search as their preferred method. Hybrid search functionality with Aurora PostgreSQL is available in all AWS Regions except Europe (Zurich) and GovCloud (US) Regions, while for MongoDB Atlas, it is available in the US West (Oregon) and US East (N. Virginia) AWS Regions.

Tech Optimizer

April 10, 2025

How Heroku migrated hundreds of thousands of self-managed PostgreSQL databases to Amazon Aurora

Heroku has migrated its multi-tenant PostgreSQL database fleet from a self-managed environment on Amazon EC2 to the Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition, improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction without impacting customers. This transition involved moving over 200,000 databases, utilizing a dual control plane approach and specialized transfer systems for efficient data migration. The new architecture allows Heroku to leverage AWS Cloud services more effectively, alleviating the operational burdens on engineering teams and enabling a focus on customer value. The migration also positions Heroku to introduce advanced features such as AI-enabled database administration and enhanced security measures.