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Go ahead, self-host Postgres

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Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#81

Post by scott_w »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #72
molf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every company out there is using the cloud and yet still employs infrastructure engineers Every company beyond a particular size surely? For many small and medium sized companies hiring an infrastructure team makes just as little sense as hiring kitchen staff to make lunch.

You're paying people to do the role either way, if it's not dedicated staff then it's taking time away from your application developers so they can play the role of underqualified architects, sysadmins, security engineers.

From experience (because I used to do this), it’s a lot less time than a self-hosted solution, once you’re factoring in the multiple services that need to be maintained.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#82

Post by odie5533 »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #11

So, yeah, I guess there's much confusion about what a 'managed database' actually is ? Because for me, the table stakes are: -Backups: the provider will push a full generic disaster-recovery backup of my database to an off-provider location at least daily, without the need for a maintenance window -Optimization: index maintenance and storage optimization are performed automatically and transparently -Multi-datacenter…

Self-host things the boss won't call at 3 AM about: logs, traces, exceptions, internal apps, analytics. Don't self-host the database or major services.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#83

Post by Nextgrid »

convolvatron wrote: post #40
molf wrote: post #36

> I'd argue self-hosting is the right choice for basically everyone, with the few exceptions at both ends of the extreme: > If you're just starting out in software & want to get something working quickly with vibe coding, it's easier to treat Postgres as just another remote API that you can call from your single deployed app > If you're a really big company and are reaching the scale where you need trained database e…

its not. I've been in a few shops that use RDS because they think their time is better spend doing other things. except now they are stuck trying to maintain and debug Postgres without having the same visibility and agency that they would if they hosted it themselves. situation isn't at all clear.

One thing unaccounted for if you've only ever used cloud-hosted DBs is just how slow they are compared to a modern server with NVME storage.

This leads the developers to do all kinds of workarounds and reach for more cloud services (and then integrating them and - often poorly - ensuring consistency across them) because the cloud hosted DB is not able to handle the load.

On bare-metal, you can go a very long way with just throwing everything at Postgres and calling it a day.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#84

Post by satvikpendem »

thedougd wrote: post #16
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #11

So, yeah, I guess there's much confusion about what a 'managed database' actually is ? Because for me, the table stakes are: -Backups: the provider will push a full generic disaster-recovery backup of my database to an off-provider location at least daily, without the need for a maintenance window -Optimization: index maintenance and storage optimization are performed automatically and transparently -Multi-datacenter…

It's even worse when you start finding you're staffing specialized skills. You have the Postgres person, and they're not quite busy enough, but nobody else wants to do what they do. But then you have an issue while they're on vacation, and that's a problem. Now I have a critical service but with a bus factor problem. So now I staff two people who are now not very busy at all. One is a bit ambitious and is tired of be…

This would be a strange scenario because why would you keep these people employed? If someone doesn't want to do the job required, including servicing Postgres, then they wouldn't be with me any longer, I'll find someone who does.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#85

Post by OccamsMirror »

tcdent wrote: post #44
WillDaSilva wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy these days to spin up a local Postgres container. Might as well use it for prototyping too, and save yourself the hassle of switching later.

It might seem minor, but the little things add up. Make your dev environment mirror prod from the start will save you a bunch of headaches. Then, when you're ready to deploy, there is nothing to change. Even better, stage to a production-like environment early, and then deploy day can be as simple as a DNS record change.

Thanks to LetsEncrypt DNS-01, you can absolutely spin up a production-like environment with SSL and everything. It's definitely worth doing.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#86

Post by convolvatron »

molf wrote: post #43
convolvatron wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its not. I've been in a few shops that use RDS because they think their time is better spend doing other things. except now they are stuck trying to maintain and debug Postgres without having the same visibility and agency that they would if they hosted it themselves. situation isn't at all clear.

Interesting. Is this an issue with RDS? I use Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL and it's been rock solid. No issues; troubleshooting works fine; all extensions we need already installed; can adjust settings where needed.

its more of a general condition - its not that RDS is somehow really faulty, its just that when things do go wrong, its not really anybody's job to introspect the system because RDS is taking care of it for us.

in the limit I dont think we should need DBAs, but as long as we need to manage indices by hand, think more than 10 seconds about the hot queries, manage replication, tune the vacuumer, track updates, and all the other rot - then actually installing PG on a node of your choice is really the smallest of problems you face.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#88

Post by danaris »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #19
christophilus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been tempted by MariaDB for this reason. I’d love to hear from anyone who has run both.

IMO Maria has fallen behind MySQL. I wouldn't chose it for anything my income depends on. (I do use Maria at home for legacy reasons, and have used MySQL and Pg professionally for years.)

> IMO Maria has fallen behind MySQL. I wouldn't chose it for anything my income depends on.

Can you give any details on that?

I switched to MariaDB back in the day for my personal projects because (so far as I could tell) it was being updated more regularly, and it was more fully open source. (I don't recall offhand at this point whether MySQL switched to a fully paid model, or just less-open.)

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#89

Post by satvikpendem »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #11

So, yeah, I guess there's much confusion about what a 'managed database' actually is ? Because for me, the table stakes are: -Backups: the provider will push a full generic disaster-recovery backup of my database to an off-provider location at least daily, without the need for a maintenance window -Optimization: index maintenance and storage optimization are performed automatically and transparently -Multi-datacenter…

If you set it up right, you can automate all this as well by self hosting. There is really nothing special about automating backups or multi region fail over.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#90

Post by phendrenad2 »

Self-hosting is one of those things that makes sense when you can control all of the variables. For example, can you stop the developers from using obscure features of the db, that suddenly become deprecated, causing you to need to do a manual rolling back while they fix the code? A one-button UI to do that might be very handy. Can you stop your IT department from breaking the VPN, preventing you from logging into the db box at exactly the wrong time? Having it all in a UI that routes around IT's fat fingers might be helpful.
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