AlloyDB, a new fully managed PostgreSQL-compatible database service that Google launched today, is reportedly twice as quick for transactional workloads as AWS’s similar Aurora PostgreSQL, according to the firm (and four times faster than standard PostgreSQL for the same workloads and up to 100 times faster for analytical queries). A fully managed PostgreSQL database service might seem familiar if you’re well-versed in the Google Cloud environment. Spanner, Google Cloud’s fully managed relational database service, also provides a PostgreSQL interface. The firm already provides CloudSQL for PostgreSQL.
However, these services provide a PostgreSQL-compatible interface so that developers with these abilities may utilize them. At its foundation, AlloyDB is a conventional PostgreSQL database, but the team modified the kernel to maximize its usage of Google’s infrastructure while enabling the team to keep up with new versions as they are released. While Google has done well in helping enterprise customers move their MySQL and PostgreSQL servers to the cloud with the help of services like CloudSQL, the company didn’t always have the right offerings for those customers who wanted to move their legacy databas.
Andi Gutmans, who joined Google as its GM and VP of Engineering for its database products in 2020 after a long stint at AWS, told me that this is one of the reasons the company is launching this new product. He explained to me, “There are several causes for it. “First, they really use many cloud providers, therefore they need the freedom to operate wherever.
There are frequently unfavorable licensing gimmicks used. Customers really, truly detest it, and, contrary to how they may have felt two to three years ago, I would say that they are now more than prepared to invest resources to just move off of these antiquated databases. They are tired of being restrained and confined. It becomes evident why Google decided that it wanted to be able to offer a dedicated high-performance PostgreSQL server when considering Postgres’ climb to become something of a de facto standard for relational open source databases (and MySQL’s collapse).
