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RDS PostgreSQL

RDS PostgreSQL Basics

  • RDS offers PostgreSQL 9.3, 9.4, 9.5, 9.6, and 10.

RDS PostgreSQL Tips

  • Recently Logical Replication is being supported, both as subscriber and publisher.
  • Supports a relatively large range of native extensions.
  • RDS PostgreSQL 10 Supports native partitioning and most of the major features and tunables.
  • Supports connections over SSL.
  • Supports multi A-Z and Point-in-time recovery.

RDS PostgreSQL Gotchas and Limitations

  • No superuser privileges. RDS provides a role rds_superuser that can do most of the needed operations but there are some limitations.
  • Some major features are delayed compared to open source PostgreSQL.
  • By default RDS is spec’d with general purpose SSD , if you need better performance you have to spec provisioned IOPS SSD.
  • You can't use RDS as a replica outside RDS without using logical replication.
  • There are settings that cannot be changed and most of the settings that can change can only be changed using database parameter groups.
  • It’s harder to troubleshoot performance problems since you have no access to the host.
  • Be sure to verify that all the extensions you need are available. If you are using an extension not listed there, you will need to come up with a work around, or deploy your own database in EC2.
  • Many Postgres utilities and maintenance items expect command line access, that can usually be satisfied by using an external ec2 server.