Why Migrating PostgreSQL to Amazon Aurora is a Great Decision

It’s easy to wax poetic about the joys of PostgreSQL for hours. An open-source database that brings all sorts of enterprise-grade capabilities to the table? Yes, please!

 
However, on-premises PostgreSQL deployments are missing out on the full potential of this powerful database technology. Amazon Aurora, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) service, can help you maximize the benefits of your PostgreSQL investment by taking it into an optimized cloud environment.

What is Amazon Aurora

Amazon Aurora is designed to support relational MySQL and PostgreSQL databases in the cloud. It uses Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) as the foundation, and then builds upon it for a highly optimized, cloud-native PostgreSQL environment.

Why Choose Amazon Aurora Over Other Cloud Services

Other cloud services are available that are capable of supporting PostgreSQL, but Amazon Aurora delivers many benefits through its specialized configuration.

Get a Highly Available Infrastructure

PostgreSQL is frequently used for high-performance and high-importance commercial database workloads. You can’t afford for these systems to go offline unexpectedly, as your organization could suffer many consequences, including reputation and financial damage. Amazon Aurora is packed with high availability features that ensure that your PostgreSQL databases are there when you need them.

The infrastructure uses a distributed, fault-tolerant cloud platform that’s rated for 99.99 percent availability. You’re able to place six database replicas into your cluster, which can be distributed across three Availability Zones. You don’t have to worry about a data center outage taking everything down, as you still have two other AZs up and running

Hassle-free Storage Provisioning

Do you find yourself constantly having to drop everything and add capacity to your on-premises PostgreSQL databases? You end up with massively over-provisioned systems, or ones that don’t have enough storage to support the demands of your data.

Amazon Aurora delivers up to 128TB of storage, and you don’t have to manually go in and allocate it. It scales in and scales out based on your actual usage, so you can focus your attention on other important parts of database management.

Pay-as-you-go Pricing

AWS has flexible pricing models in general, and Amazon Aurora is no exception. You don’t have to worry about long-term contracts, as you can use pay-as-you-go subscriptions. However, if you can estimate your long-term PostgreSQL workload requirements, you can save quite a bit of money by using reserved instances on a one to three-year basis.

No Guessing Games on PostgreSQL Cloud Configuration

If you use a standard Amazon RDS deployment, or another general-purpose cloud database service, you have to figure out the best PostgreSQL configuration on your own. That kind of knowledge usually requires highly specialized expertise, along with a lot of trial and error.

Instead of allocating all that time and resources to optimize your PostgreSQL cloud databases, you can eliminate a lot of the work with Aurora’s environment. Features such as Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Query Plan Management and Amazon Aurora parallel query are two ways that you can drive better performance.

Protecting Your PostgreSQL Data

Your mission-critical workloads leverage AWS security measures, along with a configuration that’s customized for PostgreSQL. RDS delete protection flag, Amazon KMS and Amazon VPC security groups are few of the many ways that AWS looks out for your data.

30 Seconds from Failure to Relief

A lot can happen in 30 seconds, especially if you’re using Amazon Aurora. A system-breaking, world-ending failure quickly becomes nothing more than a tiny nuisance with automated failover, which kicks in in 30 seconds. Your data has a safe place to live on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and point-in-time recovery means ability to recover data for the specific timestamp if there is a need.

Set Up Your Databases Worldwide

Use a combination of regions and availability zones to get the perfect location for your PostgreSQL databases. Aurora supports setting up PostgreSQL databases across multiple regions, so you have a highly available solution. Global database option for Amazon Aurora spans across multiple region which provides quick recovery from the outage if that outage affects an entire AWS Region.

Easily Work with Other AWS Solutions

Amazon Aurora already uses Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudWatch, so it’s no surprise that many other AWS solutions work well with it. If you already have a heavy investment in AWS, you can connect your services together and look for more cloud solutions that would support your PostgreSQL goals.

Reduce Your DBAs’ Stress Levels

Aurora is a managed database service, so your DBAs don’t have to spend their time on keeping the underlying infrastructure running. They can focus all their attention on PostgreSQL optimization and supporting strategic projects, while AWS handles many routine tasks.

Stick With Your Preferred PostgreSQL Solutions

You don’t have to ditch your favorite PostgreSQL tools just because you moved to Amazon Aurora. You can bring many of them along for the ride, which reduces the complexity of the migration and allows you to use existing technical resources.

Preparing for a PostgreSQL to Amazon Aurora Migration

Amazon Aurora provides an excellent environment for PostgreSQL workloads, but the migration process can be complex. Learn more about the advantages of migrating PostgreSQL to Amazon Aurora and what the process looks like in our white paper.