Postgres is the world’s most wanted database and the only one that has earned the unique distinction of being named the DBMS of the year (by DB-Engines) in three of the last five years. Postgres is leveraged to power core data infrastructure and data-driven products across many industries such as Banking, Finance, Insurance, Travel & Transportation, etc. At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. It’s this mission that drives our firm commitment to collaborate with and contribute to the Postgres community and to invest in bringing the best of Postgres and Azure to the broadest set of users.
Today, we're extremely excited to announce General Availability (GA) of Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server in more than 30 regions worldwide. When we launched the preview of Flexible Server, we wanted to make it easier for our customers to modernize their Postgres databases to Azure, and simple to build new cloud native apps. One of the objectives was to solve the dilemma customers faced, choosing between the benefits of a fully managed database service and loss of control. Our goal was to provide customers with a delightful, easy-to-use service optimized for price/performance together with the ability to customize as necessary to achieve the unique requirements of each application.
Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server aims to achieve this goal by providing access to the latest versions of Postgres and the ability to:
- Simplify the application development experience, making it easy to quickly provision, connect, and start developing by using your choice of tools integrated out of the box with GitHub, Terraform, Azure Kubernetes Service, and Web Apps.
- Develop highly available, resilient, and scalable applications with the option to select same-zone or zone-redundant high availability.
- Exercise maximum control by tuning over 225 database parameters including max_connection, shared_buffers, etc., choosing a maintenance schedule that meets business requirements, and selecting the optimal amount of CPU and memory resources.
- Secure data with full network isolation, encryption of data at rest, and encrypted connections that have full control of TLS and SSL enforcement.
- Optimize costs with a Burstable compute tier that can be dynamically scaled up or down, the option to stop a development or test PostgreSQL server when not in use, and reserved instance pricing, which customers can subscribe to and save over 67%.
Note: As of December 1st, 2021, the price of the B1MS Burstable compute tier is being reduced by 50%.
We invite you to watch this Azure Data Exposed interview with Sunil Agarwal, Lead Product Manager for Postgres, to learn about key features in Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server.
What do customers running production workloads on Flexible Server think?
We’re thankful to the thousands of our customers who evaluated the service and trusted us with running their most business-critical applications on PostgreSQL Flexible Server. Customers appreciate Flexible Server’s performance, cost optimization controls, and features such as built-in PgBouncer.
Below are comments from a few of our customers running workloads on Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server in production.
ÖBB expands its transportation business and improves time to market
ÖBB—Austrian Federal Railways, Austria’s largest mobility services provider, prides itself on efficiency and excellent customer service. ÖBB migrated their Oracle on-premises Ticketshop application to Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server with no downtime. ÖBB uses dynamic scaling capabilities available in the platform and gain superior control via features such as custom maintenance windows, zone-redundant high availability, and reserved instance pricing to reduce the cost further. Read more about ÖBB’s story here.
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All services were highly optimized for performance on Oracle servers. Flexible Server saved the project and enabled us to go live. With this architecture, even if a zone fails, that's also something that Flexible Server fixes. - Walter Pongratz: ÖBB Technical Architect |
Ebiquity scales workloads without compromising performance
Ebiquity, a world leader in media investment analysis, works with more than 70 of the top 100 advertisers across the globe. Ebiquity migrated their mission-critical workload to Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server to take advantage of zone-redundant high availability and the superior out-of-box performance. Ebiquity has since realized a 17% reduction in cost compared to their previous implementation. Read more about the Ebiquity story here.
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Using Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server… we’re able to operate on fewer cores, and the data cycles we run are far more streamlined… After migrating to Flexible Server… we are seeing 98% reduction in time taken by queries. We have deployed zone-redundant HA with Flexible Server. We have had zero timeouts and zero forced server resets.
Operating on Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server, we now offer our customers complete global, granular oversight of all their digital media investments. We’re the only company in the world that can provide that level of oversight and control. - Ruben Schreurs: Group Chief Product Officer |
Scandinavian Airlines speeds app development while lowering costs
Scandinavia’s leading airline, SAS, is in the process of modernizing application development by first migrating their on-premises booking application to Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server. Since the migration, they have been able to accelerate application development and focus on innovation. With Flexible Server, SAS is leveraging custom maintenance windows to minimize downtime; Stop/Start feature to reduce cost for the Dev/Test environment; and Intelligent Performance to troubleshoot and optimize queries. Read more about the SAS story here.
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We wanted to enable our web development teams to speed up their ability to deliver solutions for our travelers on a continuous basis—and without dependency on other IT functions. We said, ‘Why don't we move our databases to Azure Database for PostgreSQL and keep it simple? Let Azure take care of the availability, redundancy, and SLA, as it should be. Let us focus on our application code'.
The AKS migration was the jump-start for us to move our databases and look at Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server. It saved our app developers a lot of time. - David Fuchslin: DevSecOps Engineer |
BNY Mellon improves business agility with faster database performance
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY Mellon, is the world's largest custody bank with $2.2 trillion in assets under management and $41.7 trillion in assets under custody. BNY Mellon powers success across the financial world for individuals and institutions through unique insights, thinking, and actions. Their ESG Data Analytics application is a cloud-based solution that mass-customizes investment portfolios to clients’ individual ESG factor preferences.
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The zone-redundant high availability feature makes Flexible Server a robust and resilient choice for all our mission critical projects. We are extremely pleased with its feature-rich cloud capabilities, such as integration and operability, which makes it easy to consume as a managed-service offering for BNY Mellon.
The blazing fast database restore capabilities provide 20x improvement over conventional backup/restore functions using native tools. Our performance testing & release-readiness improved 5x while minimizing errors, bug-fixes and identifying potential unknowns. PG-Flex provides high-degree of configuration-flexibility to engineering teams looking to fine-tune their database compute efforts. - Prashant Prabhala, VP Data Management - Analytics and Architecture |
We’re committed to improving Flexible Server and bringing continuous innovation!
Over the past year, our team has been hard at work continuously improving the service by delivering features based on customer feedback to make Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server the best choice for running PostgreSQL in the cloud.
Note: Check out the latest and past updates in Release notes - Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server.
In addition, with Azure’s worldwide presence in over 60+ regions with 170 points of presence, we will continuously add support for Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server in new regions.
In conclusion
Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server delivers you the simplicity of a managed database service together with maximum control and flexibility. Whether you are modernizing your existing Postgres database or building new apps, we are working hard to make that simple and easy for you. It’s easy to get started at no cost by using our free trial offer.
We look forward to hearing about how Flexible Server is helping you to achieve productivity and meet your goals. We’re always eager to hear from you, so please reach out to us at Ask Azure DB for PostgreSQL.
To learn even more about our Flexible Server managed service, see the Azure Database for PostgreSQL service page.
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