Postgres aims to help teams build applications, protect data integrity, and manage data more efficiently. Although its core platform has been around for more than 30 years, the system is evolving to meet users’ needs. Postgres is now expanding from an open-source relational database to an enterprise-class platform.
But what are the benefits of Postgres, and how can you optimize the platform to fit your business needs?
Migrating from one platform to another can be tricky. During the transition to a new database like Postgres, you want to maintain functionality while keeping costs and migration time to a minimum.
But migration isn’t all about the technical aspects. According to Julian Moffett, who moved his company from Oracle to Postgres, technical challenges are just 10% of the problem. You also have to get your application team on board and demonstrate the business case for a system transition.
So what benefits can you present to get your team on board and work toward a seamless migration? One of the major advantages of Postgres is scalability. Data growth has been a concern on the Oracle platform because the environment is getting too big and costs are rising. With Postgres, you can scale without the high costs. Additionally, Postgres provides high availability, extensibility, and security features.
Is it better to build your own system, or buy a pre-packaged module?
Ultimately, it comes down to your specific business and its needs. For one of Gunjan Goel’s clients, the process of designing a new target platform and building from the ground up took almost 10 months. However, they figured out what data structures they could put on the cloud, what they could keep on-prem, and how data performance could be enhanced as they moved onto their target platform. Once they got their new structure up and running, they were able to see performance improvement, which surpassed the time, energy, and cost of building out their platform. Plus, opting to build allowed them to differentiate their platform.
Of course, there are pros and cons to each option, but Gunjan suggests that companies combine the build and the buy and expand their platform with an open-source mindset. You don’t have to lock yourself into a pre-set product, but it’s helpful to use pre-built options to jumpstart your systems. Once the pre-built systems are in place, you can build on top of it and expand with your own designs.
Postgres isn’t just a database — it’s an entire ecosystem. So, when you successfully build out your platform by optimizing tools, you’ll see improved performance throughout your database and processes.
The different tools within Postgres work together to provide a reliable and stable platform, ensuring that critical components like automation, data backup, and data monitoring are supported (and efficient). But how does the investment compare to other platforms like Oracle, and is it really worth it?
Companies that have made the switch have found that Postgres fosters higher availability, less downtime, monitoring solutions, and tools for improved team productivity. With Postgres, you can also have greater flexibility within your database and customize your platform to fit your business needs, which, in turn, improves the overall performance of your company.
Although Postgres may have an investment upfront, many companies are finding that it outweighs the cost of a database that just isn’t working for you anymore. And as the platform’s capabilities continue to develop at a rapid rate, companies are seeing just how valuable Postgres is in the future of digital architecture.
