PostgreSQL - Capabilities and Limitations

Last updated January 19th, 2023

Objective

This page provides the technical capabilities and limitations of the Public Cloud Databases for PostgreSQL offer.

We continuously improve our offers. You can follow and submit ideas to add to our roadmap at https://github.com/ovh/public-cloud-roadmap/projects/2.

Capabilities and limitations

Supported regions and multi-AZ

The Public Cloud Databases offer is available in the following regions:

• BHS (Beauharnois, Canada)
• DE (Frankfurt, Germany)
• GRA (Gravelines, France)
• SBG (Strasbourg, France)
• UK (London, United Kingdom)
• WAW (Warsaw, Poland)

Database nodes have to be in the same region. Multi-AZ is currently not supported.

PostgreSQL versions

The Public Cloud Databases offer supports the following PostgreSQL versions:

• PostgreSQL 10
• PostgreSQL 11
• PostgreSQL 12
• PostgreSQL 13
• PostgreSQL 14

You can follow EOL lifecycle for PostgreSQL version on their official page : https://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/

PostgreSQL connectors

You can use any of the PostgreSQL-recommended drivers and extensions to access your instance.

Plans

Three plans are available:

• Essential
• Business
• Enterprise

Here is an overview of the various plans' capabilities:

Plan	Number of nodes by default	Read replicas
Essential	1	No
Business	2	Planned
Enterprise	3	Planned

Your choice of plan affects the number of nodes your cluster can run, the SLA, and a few other features such as read replicas or backup retention.

Nodes and replicas

• Essential: the cluster can support at most one node.
• Business: the cluster is delivered with 2 nodes by default. Adding read replicas is planned.
• Enterprise: The cluster is delivered with 3 nodes by default. Adding read replicas is planned.

License type

PostgreSQL software is under the PostgreSQL License, a liberal open-source license, similar to BSD or MIT licenses. More information on https://www.postgresql.org/about/licence/.

Hardware resources

Here are the node types you can choose from:

Name	Disk (GB)	Cores	Memory (GB)
db1-7	160	2	7
db1-15	320	4	15
db1-30	640	8	30
db1-60	1280	16	60
db1-120	2560	32	120

Right now, all nodes of a given cluster should be of the same type and distributed in the same region.

Disk type

The type of storage available may vary according to the region your cluster lives in: see Availability of Public Cloud products for more information about block storage type availability depending on region. Thus, your cluster may be backed by e.g. High Speed or High Speed Gen2 block storage.

Also, the performance caracteristics of the various storage offerings may vary depending on e.g. the storage size your cluster uses: High Speed may offer better iops than High Speed Gen2 for some disk sizes. See Block Storage documentation for more information about those performance caracteristics.

Public Cloud Databases will select the most efficient disk type for your cluster depending on your cluster parameters.

Effective storage

The disk size listed above is the total disk size of the underlying machine. However, a small part of it goes towards the OS install.

We try hard to avoid "disk full" situations that could be harmful to cluster health. Therefore:

1. When reaching 97% capacity, the customer will have his database instance moved in "DISK_FULL" state, and "read-only" mode, meaning no more writes can be done.
2. You then have the ability to upgrade to a higher service plan with more storage.

Features

Network

PostgreSQL clusters are reachable through default port 5432.

Public as well as private networking (vRack) can be used for all the offers.

Ingress and Egress traffic are included in the service plans and unmetered.

Private network considerations

Here are some considerations to take into account when using private network:

• Network ports are created in the private network of your choice. Thus, further operations on that network might be restricted - e.g. you won’t be able to delete the network if you didn’t stop the Public Cloud Databases services first.
• When connecting from outside subnet, Openstack IP gateway must be enabled in the subnet use for the Database service. The customer is responsible for any other custom network setup.

Maximum simultaneous connections

The number of simultaneous connections in Public Cloud Databases for PostgreSQL depends on the available total memory on the node. We allow approximately 100 connections per 4 GB of RAM memory, capped to a maximum of 1000 active connections.

So for example on a server with 7 GB memory, you will get approximately 200 connections and with 15 GB memory you will get 400 connections.

Advanced parameters

We do not currently support PostgreSQL advanced parameters.

Backups

Essential plan clusters are automatically backed up daily during their maintenance window. Backup retention is 2 days.

Business plan clusters are automatically backed up daily during their maintenance window. Backup retention is 14 days.

Enterprise plan clusters are automatically backed up daily during their maintenance window. Backup retention is 30 days.

Logs and metrics

Logs and metrics are available via the OVHcloud Public Cloud Control Panel. As of today, you can't export logs and metrics, nor plug them into a remote tool.

• Logs retention: 1000 lines of logs
• Metrics retention: 1 calendar month

Please note that if the database instance is deleted, logs and metrics are also automatically deleted.

Users and roles

Creation of users is allowed via the Control Panel and API with default admin roles and privileges. You can't select specific privileges.

We want your feedback!

We would love to help answer questions and appreciate any feedback you may have.

Are you on Discord? Connect to our channel at https://discord.gg/ovhcloud and interact directly with the team that builds our databases service!

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