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Expanding the Boundaries of PostgreSQL: Announcing a Bottomless, Consumption-Based Object Storage Layer Built on Amazon S3

We are excited to announce the initial launch, in private beta, of our new consumption-based, low-cost object storage layer in Timescale Cloud. This new capability expands the boundaries of traditional databases, allowing you to transparently tier your data across disk and Amazon S3 while accessing it as if it all lived in one single continuous PostgreSQL table. This means that you can now store an infinite amount of data in Timescale Cloud, paying only for what you store.

Our new feature expands the boundaries of traditional managed databases with a novel cloud-native architecture designed to save developers money and time, incorporating elements typically associated with data warehouses and data lakes, enabling PostgreSQL developers to grow their data effortlessly for a fraction of the price of traditional storage.

Rather than operating an external system for data archiving alongside a time-series database which often creates data silos and operational overhead, developers can now simply work with a single table where data is transparently tiered across different storage systems while retaining the ability to query that data via standard SQL.

We built new database internal capabilities and external subsystems to give application developers access to an object store from within a PostgreSQL database in Timescale Cloud. The result is that time-series tables, called hypertables, can now stretch across standard disk storage (in Amazon EBS) and object storage (in Amazon S3), with data formats that are optimized for each layer. Query optimizations ensure that data is fetched from both disk and object storage for a single SQL query, abstracting away complexity from the PostgreSQL developer.

In addition to cost-efficient data tiering, future enhancements to our newly released object store will seek to enable easier data sharing between fleets of databases, faster transfer of data into new deployments, and smoother migration of data from external data warehouses to Timescale Cloud.

This new consumption-based, low-cost object storage is currently available under private beta. Users with a Timescale Cloud account can request accesscreating an account is free and it gives developers full access to the platform for 30 days.

Read the full announcement here

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