Introducing PGD quick starts v5
Quick Start
Postgres Distributed (PGD) is a multi-master replicating implementation of Postgres designed for high performance and availability. You can create database clusters made up of many bidirectionally synchronizing database nodes. The clusters can have a number of proxy servers that direct your query traffic to the most available nodes, adding further resilience to your cluster configuration.
PGD is very configurable. To quickly evaluate and deploy PGD, use this quick start. It'll get you up and running with a fully configured PGD cluster using the same tools that you'll use to deploy to production. This quick start includes:
- A short introduction to Trusted Postgres Architect (TPA) and how it helps you configure, deploy, and manage Postgres Distributed
- A guide to selecting Docker or AWS quick starts
- The Docker quick start
- The AWS quick start
- Connecting applications to your cluster
- Further explorations with your cluster
- Conflicts
- Failover
- Reconfiguration
Introducing PGD and TPA
PGD is a multi-master replicating implementation of Postgres designed for high performance and availability. The installation of PGD is orchestrated by TPA.
We created TPA to make installing and managing various Postgres configurations easily repeatable. TPA orchestrates creating and deploying Postgres.
In these quick starts, you install TPA first. If you already have TPA installed, you can skip those steps. TPA is more of a tool than a simple installer. You will be able to use the same installation of TPA to deploy many different configurations of Postgres clusters.
You'll use TPA to generate a configuration file for a PGD demonstration cluster. This cluster will have three replicating database nodes, co-hosting three high availability proxies, and one backup node.
You will then use TPA to provision and deploy the required configuration and software to each node.
Selecting Docker or AWS quick starts
Two quick starts currently available. One uses Docker to host the PGD cluster. The other deploys PGD to AWS.
Docker quick start
The Docker quick start is ideal for those looking to initially explore PGD and its capabilities. This configuration of PGD isn't suitable for production use but can be valuable for testing the functionality and behavior of PGD clusters. You might also find it useful when familiarizing yourself with PGD commands and APIs to prepare for deploying on cloud, VM, or bare metal platforms.
AWS quick start
The AWS quick start is more extensive and deploys the PGD cluster onto EC2 nodes on Amazon's cloud. The cluster's overall configuration is similar to the Docker quick start. However, instead of using Docker containers, it uses t3.micro instances of Amazon EC2 to provide the compute power. The AWS deployment is more persistent and not subject to the limitations of the Docker quick start deployment, but it requires more initial setup to configure the AWS CLI.