Zero-downtime Postgres major upgrades

Physical2logical + PAUSE/RESUME technique for true zero-downtime, zero-data-loss, reversible Postgres major version upgrades. Battle-tested on mission-critical clusters with dozens of terabytes of datata and 100,000s TPS.

Three critical guarantees​

Our solution delivers all three essential characteristics for enterprise-grade major upgrades for Postgres:

• ✅ Zero data loss
• 🔐 Split-brain protection
• ⚡ Zero downtime

The problem​

Traditional Postgres major version upgrades require:

• Hours of downtime for multi-terabyte databases
• Complete database shutdown during pg_upgrade
• High-risk rollback procedures if issues arise
• Hard to test and verify procedures for various issues like incompatibilities
• Risks of plan flips and performance regressions after upgrade

Our solution: Four-component approach​

A complete system:

• Reliable, safe, battle-proven physical2logical conversion technique
• PgBouncer's PAUSE/RESUME for true zero-downtime connection management
• Reverse replication to allow going back if needed
• Extensive testing before deployment including for plan flips and compatibility issues

Case studies​

• GitLab's conference talks about their zero-downtime upgrade experience
• pganalyze technical review of zero-downtime upgrade approaches including our method
• A heavily-loaded cluster on Crunchy Bridge (TBD)
• More cases (TBD)

Get preview access​

This solution is fully developed and battle-tested. We're offering preview access to select enterprise customers.