Comparing Cloud Database Options for PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is world’s most advanced and preferred open source RDBMS for many start-ups, mobile applications and developers.

The traditional way to set up, operate and scale PostgreSQL is time consuming and requires expertise in database systems and PostgreSQL.

There are many vendors which provides cloud platforms for different databases. These solutions come with facilities to make it easy to set up, operate and scale PostgreSQL deployments in the cloud.

Some examples of these services for PostgreSQL are Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, Google cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, Heroku PostgreSQL, EnterpriseDB cloud database, Microsoft Azure for PostgreSQL, etc.

There are two cloud database environment models.

1. Traditional cloud model: The content will be run on the particular enterprise infrastructure and any oversight will fall into the shoulders of the IT staff of the company.
2. Database as a service (DBaaS): It runs on the service providers infrastructure and they (the vendor) would be responsible for any hitches or glitches.

Benefits of a Cloud-Based Database

1. Increase the speed of getting the application to the market
2. Easy to set up and administer the database
3. Getting rid of physical infrastructure.
4. Developers can focus on the core part of the application instead of managing and maintaining servers.
5. Ease to take backup
6. Scale out easily
7. High availability

Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL

Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL is one of the biggest players in the world which provides PostgreSQL database service in the cloud. It is one of the best option to scale a PostgreSQL deployment in the cloud. With Amazon RDS, we can easily manage and administer our databases.

Features of Using Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL

1. Easy to set up
2. Push button scaling
3. Automated backup and recovery
4. Resizable hardware capacity and storage management
5. Cost efficient
6. High availability

Pricing

Amazon RDS pricing policy is to pay only for what you use. There is no minimum or maximum fee. You can estimate your monthly bill using the AWS simple monthly calculator.

Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL pricing depends on type of instances.

1. Single AZ deployment: Pricing depends on deployment of DB instances in single availability zone.
2. Multi AZ deployment: Pricing depends on deployment of DB instances in multiple availability zone.
3. Reserved instances

Example

Google Cloud SQL

Google’s Cloud SQL provide a fully managed database service that makes it easy to set up, maintain and administer PostgreSQL BETA databases in the cloud. It is hosted on Google cloud platform which offers high performance, scalability and provides infrastructure for applications running anywhere in the world.

Features

1. Scalability
2. High performance
3. Integrated
4. Fully managed
5. Security
6. Standard APIs
7. Availability protection

Pricing

Google’s Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL pricing is composed of the following charges:

1. Instance pricing
2. CPU and Memory pricing
3. Storage pricing
4. Network pricing

Instance Pricing

CPU and memory pricing

Storage pricing

Network pricing

Please check the Google cloud platform pricing calculator for more detail.

Microsoft Azure for PostgreSQL

Azure database for PostgreSQL is a well managed database service that makes it easier to build Apps without any management and administration burden. Azure for PostgreSQL service uses community PostgreSQL and seamlessly works with native tools, drivers and libraries.

Azure for PostgreSQL also provides high availability and scalability in seconds, helping you easily adjust to changes in customer demands. Additionally, you will get benefit from unparalleled security and compliance, including Azure IP Advantage, and Azure’s industry leading reach with more datacenters than any other cloud provider. Azure currently offers support for PostgreSQL versions 9.5 and 9.6.

Features

1. Fully managed community PostgreSQL
2. Languages and frameworks of customers choice
3. Built-in high availability
4. Scale within seconds
5. Automated backups and point-in-time restore
6. Unparalleled security and reach
7. Simple and flexible pricing

Pricing tiers

There are three different pricing tiers of Azure database for PostgreSQL:

1. Basic
2. General purpose
3. Memory optimized

Azure database for PostgreSQL pricing tiers are differentiated by the amount of compute in vCores that can be provisioned, memory per vCore, and the storage technology used to store the data. All the resources are provisioned at the PostgreSQL server level. Each server can have one or many databases.

Pricing

Compute generation 4 and compute generation 5

vCore	Price
1	$0.034/hour
2	$0.068/hour

Storage

GB/month

$0.10

The above price is for the basic tier only. Please check the more details about pricing here.

Please check the Quickstart guide for Azure database for PostgreSQL.

Heroku PostgreSQL

Heroku Postgres is a managed SQL Database as a Service provided by Heroku. Heroku Postgres helps to maximize data instead of spending time on database setup and maintenance. It provides a wide range of features like testing schema migration, manage database access levels and protect queries, scale horizontally and quick access of data. Heroku Postgres keep the data very safely because it provides continuous protection to data and also offers a number of ways to replicate, backup and export the data. Heroku Postgres provides a web dashboard and ability to share queries with dataclips.

Features

1. Easy to install
2. Automated health check
3. High availability
4. Automatic scaling horizontally
5. Seamlessly applying the latest security patch

Pricing

Heroku Postgres offers a wide range of plans to serve use cases that range in size from blogs to large dataset, high transaction applications.

Plan tiers

Plans are divided into five high level tiers. The main difference between each tier is the amount of tolerated monthly downtime for database in the tier.

1. Hobby Tier: This is for apps that can tolerate up to 4 hours of downtime per month
2. Standard Tier: This is for apps that can tolerate up to 1 hour of downtime per month
3. Premium Tier: This is for apps that can tolerate up to 15 minutes of downtime per month
4. Private Tier: This is for Heroku Enterprise customers
5. Shield Tier: This is for Heroku Enterprise customers who need compliance capable databases.

EnterpriseDB Cloud Database

EnterpriseDB PostgreSQL Plus Cloud Database is used to deploy PostgreSQL databases to cloud server instances. The master database, all replica instances, and Amazon storage for the database run on AWS instances owned by you, while Postgres Plus Cloud Database consoles are owned and operated by EnterpriseDB.

EDB Postgres subscription plan offers subscription for:

1. EDB Postgres platform
2. EDB Postgres Ark DBaaS to multiple clouds

The Postgres Plus Cloud Database on AWS and EDB Postgres on Google compute platform are provided through a pay-as-you-go model in AWS marketplace and in the Google marketplace.

1. Postgres plus cloud database on AWS
2. EDB Postgres on Google compute

This is the estimated cost of EDB postgres on Google compute engine using default configuration.

There are two versions of EDB Postgres Plus Cloud Database.

1. PostgreSQL Plus Cloud Database Basic: This is available with community PostgreSQL database.

   

2. PostgreSQL Plus Cloud Database Advanced: This is available with EnterpriseDB’s PostgreSQL Plus Advanced Server with Oracle compatibility and enhanced security, performance and manageability.

   

Features

1. Easy to install
2. Backup and disaster recovery
3. High availability
4. Point in time recovery
5. Support for Amazon’s Provisioned IOPS: It ensures consistent database performance and increase overall performance for I/O intensive workloads.

There are two options to purchase EDB cloud database:

1. Purchase pay-as-you-go offering from Amazon without long term commitment
2. Purchase one year subscription from EDB that lets you purchase computing resources directly from Amazon including reserved instances.

For more detail check the EDB Postgres plus cloud database FAQ’s.

Citus DB Cloud

Citus intelligently distributes the data & queries across the nodes so the database can scale and the queries can be faster. Citus is available as a database as a service, as enterprise software, and as open source. It is very simple to shard a PostgreSQL database. Citus cloud provides a fully managed Citus service delivered on top of AWS.

Citus is a extension to PostgreSQL for distributing your database across multiple nodes.

Features

1. Scale out database
2. Distributed SQL engine
3. Seamless migration tools
4. Fast performance
5. High availability
6. Multi-tenant SaaS support
7. Automated backup and disaster recovery

Pricing

ElephantSQL

ElephantSQL provides PostgreSQL as a Service. ElephantSQL installs and manages PostgreSQL and offers databases ranging from shard servers for small projects and proof of concepts, up to enterprise-grade multi-server setups. It also provides a browser tool for SQL queries where you can create, read, update and delete data directly from the web browser.

Features

1. Fully managed HA PostgreSQL
2. Automated backups
3. Monitoring
4. PostgreSQL browser

Pricing

Conclusion

Cloud databases are very important for removing IT complexities and to drive business goals.
Apart from handling the installation, maintenance and scaling of IT infrastructures, constant upgrades by cloud service providers make it easier for enterprises to cut down operational costs without compromising on security and quality.