pgEdge, a provider of a distributed Postgres database system, announced the release of pgEdge Cloud Developer Edition in open preview. This edition for developers offers rapid setup and a generous free tier for evaluations and small projects. 

pgEdge Cloud Developer Edition offers a fully managed, serverless distributed Postgres database that’s user-friendly for developers. It allows for quick setup, enabling users to deploy a distributed database across multiple regions like North America, Europe, and Singapore in about 90 seconds, according to Philip Merrick, CEO and co-founder of pgEdge.

This ease of use, combined with the choice of configurations, aims to make distributed Postgres accessible and convenient, particularly for those with applications requiring low latency and high availability.

Unlike most providers, pgEdge offers a fully distributed Postgres database that is both open and fully Postgres-based, according to Merrick. pgEdge Cloud Developer Edition is also fully based on standard Postgres, supporting both current and recent versions of Postgres, and allows the use of Postgres extensions. 

“pgEdge is fully distributed Postgres: it’s 100% based on Postgres, not just Postgres-compatible, and it’s 100% open with the source code available,” Merrick said. 

Postgres is often referred to as one of the most popular open-source relational database management systems. PostgreSQL was awarded DBMS of the Year 2023 by DB-Engines after winning three titles between 2017 and 2020. Despite its popularity, PostgreSQL has been lacking a strong and open, distributed capability, according to Merrick. 

“The reason why you might want to invest in a distributed relational database, particularly a distributed Postgres database is, number one, you can solve the latency problem. So when you’ve got a globally distributed application or an application that has global users, if your database is sitting in one place, for instance, Amazon’sUS  East One region, then anyone who is actually at some reasonable distance from there is going to see much slower performance,” Merrick told SD Times. 

pgEdge aims to solve that problem by putting copies of the database closer to where users are coming into the network, he explained. 

The second thing pgEdge aims to help with is to make the system and the application on top of it with ultra-high availability with potentially up to five nines of uptime. pgEdge Cloud Developer Edition can handle node failures within a network of multiple database nodes because if one node goes down, traffic is automatically redirected to the remaining operational nodes. Once the downed node is ready and operational again, it syncs up with the others and rejoins the network, ensuring continuous and reliable service.

pgEdge incorporates latency-based DNS routing, which ensures that users are connected to the nearest operational node, optimizing performance and reducing response times. The free tier allows up to 12GB of storage across three nodes.

In addition to its instant deployment feature and a predefined multi-region cluster offering, pgEdge employs a Multi-Master (Active-Active) setup, where each database node is capable of handling both read and write operations. This design ensures low latency and high availability, using an eventually consistent model with efficient conflict resolution and reporting mechanisms.

This is complemented by robust management and monitoring tools, eliminating the need for manual infrastructure configuration. The platform provides automated backups, security measures to prevent misconfiguration and continuous monitoring, all through a user-friendly dashboard. 

All in all, distributed PostgreSQL is not suitable for every use case, and the key factors to consider include whether there is a specific need for the low latency offered by distributed Postgres, particularly to improve page load times for global users, and the importance of achieving very high uptime, according to Merrick. 

“pgEdge Cloud Developer Edition marks a significant leap in our mission to make it easy for developers to build and deploy highly distributed database applications across the global network,” said Phillip Merrick, Co-founder and CEO at pgEdge. “The innovative features of the pgEdge Cloud fully managed service, from multi-region, multi-master support to its intuitive user interface, empower developers to easily create and manage distributed PostgreSQL databases.”