PostgreSQL® Competence Center

Welcome to our PostgreSQL® Competence Center!

Here you get all PostgreSQL® Services under one roof.

As a long-term and one of the most successful Open Source projects, PostgreSQL® has developed into one of the leading object-relational database systems, and therefore offers an extremely powerful and viable alternative to available proprietary database systems.

What is the PostgreSQL® Competence Center?

Our PostgreSQL® Competence Center supports the entire PostgreSQL® lifecycle in your company. Our PostgreSQL® Competence Center is available to you as a reliable and skilled contact partner from the initial consultation onwards.

We support you with your migration projects, provide operational support upon request, or take over the complete operation of your entire PostgreSQL® environment.

Our PostgreSQL® team provides support on all issues relating to the topic of PostgreSQL®. This naturally also includes topics such as high availability, cluster and replication, tuning and optimization, a tailored monitoring environment, as well as development services and individual workshops and training sessions.

What is PostgreSQL®?

PostgreSQL® is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS), which is freely available as Open Source software and can be downloaded and used without a license.

POSTGRES was originally developed as a university project at the University of California at Berkeley Computer Science Department. Since then countless developers around the world have worked on this code and, in 1996, the project was named PostgreSQL®.

PostgreSQL® is rightly dubbed “the most advanced Open Source database system” and supports the SQL92 and SQL99 standards. Besides this, PostgreSQL® also offers a range of internal extensions.

PostgreSQL® Support

Our Service and Support department provides professional and comprehensive support for PostgreSQL®.

Databases in particular play a vital or even strategic role in companies. Our support helps you safeguard the operation of your PostgreSQL® databases in business-critical operations exactly as you would when using proprietary, commercial software.

Our support model offers you a number of benefits that only we provide:

  • no dependence on the number of servers and CPUs used or the number of users
  • unlimited scaling of the number of PostgreSQL® databases used without changing the support costs
  • guaranteed response times
  • 24×7 support, 365 days a year
  • Level 3 support at the developer level
  • direct support in German by the credativ GmbH PostgreSQL® team
  • telephone, email, remote service, and on-site support
  • support models based on time units
  • support for the entire PostgreSQL®/Open Source environment
  • additional support by the entire German Open Source Support Center team
  • individual service level agreements

Consulting

We provide comprehensive consulting services that cover all areas of the commercial use of PostgreSQL®, from the initial planning through to go-live. We support you across the entire PostgreSQL® lifecycle.

  • Design
  • Selection and optimization of the technical platform
  • Scaling, performance
  • Big data
  • Security
  • High-availability concepts
  • Cluster and replication
  • Backup
  • Database monitoring
  • Migration

Deep-level services

Our PostgreSQL® Competence Center is also available for services that extend well beyond the usual standard support.

Our team is familiar with PostgreSQL® down to code level and can provide support even when we get down to the nitty-gritty.

Database design

The schema design plays a key role in a database system.

Constraints ensure the consistency of the data. Performance depends primarily on the right normalization.

We would be pleased to help you with the schema design, irrespective of whether the objective is a data repository with maximum consistency and constancy of meaning in ideal normalization or performance maximization with star schemas in your data warehouse.

Performance analysis

Performance problems when using PostgreSQL®? Wherever the bottleneck is, we will quickly locate it and present solutions.

The nature of the solutions can be extremely diverse and can include tuning on the schema or the PostgreSQL® configuration, changing the cost model parameters, rewriting inefficient stored procedures in C as PostgreSQL® extensions or even with the clear statement that “more hardware” is the only solution.

Tuning, query analysis and optimization

Postgres’ amortizing query analysis allows critical queries to be quickly identified.

Looking at the query plan with EXPLAIN also lets you see the specific technical reason for a query’s unwanted performance behavior. While this allows simple problems, such as a missing index, to be quickly identified and rectified independently, the problems sometimes also lie deeper. For example, a plan may also be poor due to the unfavorable parameterization of the cost model or because the planner did not have access to the right statistics for selecting a good query plan.

In this case you can draw on our extensive experience in working with query plans, naturally also together with the transfer of the appropriate knowledge where required.

Cluster systems

PostgreSQL® has long since stopped being tied to a single node.

Cluster systems for different requirements can be set up using various replication solutions.

Different replication solutions and configurations are used depending on whether the focus is on high availability or load balancing.

Load management

Did you know that Skype’s global telephony infrastructure uses PostgreSQL®?

This is naturally no longer possible with a single instance; it requires load balancing across thousands of nodes.

Whether 2 or 1,000 instances, we are familiar with the technologies for the right load balancing with PostgreSQL® and would be pleased to advise you.

Bug fixes and patch management

The PostgreSQL® ecosystem has proven its stability over many years. But problems sometimes arise, whether this is in the PostgreSQL® core, the extensions, the monitoring, or the backup solution.

The PostgreSQL® Competence Center helps with the early detection of errors through proactive patch management for your Open Source products. Our team is also ready to provide support with critical bugs, from detection through to the bug fix itself, and the upstream integration.

Health checks and security audits

After an expensive incident, you often hear that the incident could have been avoided by getting an expert to look over the system.

If you have business-critical databases, the health status of which you are not aware, we would be pleased to put them under the microscope with our extensive experience.

Agile methods

Even though relational databases currently do not have a reputation for agility, we are completely open to agile methods with PostgreSQL®.

For example, based on our experience, pair programming between application development and PostgreSQL® veterans can be highly effective.

Naturally only if your SCRUM Master is also on board…

 

Operational support and takeover of operations

Our operational support is always there for you. We absorb load peaks, support you in the holiday period and in case of illness-related absenteeism.

We would be pleased to take on the role of database administrator in critical staffing situations.

PostgreSQL® migrations

Are you considering migrating an existing application from another database management system, such as Oracle, DB2, Informix, or MS-SQL server, to PostgreSQL®?

We support you every step of the way, from the feasibility study and cost estimate through to the selection of the right tools and the schema migration, as well as the fast and smooth data transfer for a switchover with the lowest possible downtime. We naturally also support you with migration from an on-premise environment to a future cloud environment, as well as in the reverse direction, from the cloud environment back to an internal on-premise environment or to your own private cloud.

We employ experienced PostgreSQL® developers who can help you with development and troubleshooting in the database server.

Access to the source code facilitates the localization of errors and performance bottlenecks, while our experience helps you make PostgreSQL® even more reliable.

We also develop individual extensions and additional modules for PostgreSQL® – naturally also under a free Open Source license.

PostgreSQL® in the cloud

Are you looking to migrate your existing database to PostgreSQL® and manage it in a cloud environment?

credativ® supports the entire database lifecycle for PostgreSQL® databases in typical cloud environments, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS. We offer comprehensive consultation and services in all areas of PostgreSQL® in commercial use. Our dedicated PostgreSQL® team is there to support you from the initial planning through the go-live.

Elephant Shed – the free PostgreSQL® software appliance from credativ

The credativ GmbH PostgreSQL® Competence Center develops and administers the freely available Open Source project Elephant Shed. Elephant Shed is a powerful software appliance, which provides a complete PostgreSQL® database environment including all the appropriate tools required for operation. This appliance can be used at any time as a database server available for immediate use. Elephant Shed is available for use on dedicated hardware as well as for use in virtualized environments. Its use is not associated with any costs for subscriptions or licenses. We have provided further information on Elephant Shed for you here.

Training sessions and workshops

Training sessions and workshops are naturally also part of the services offered by our PostgreSQL® Competence Center.

Besides individual training, we also hold training sessions at our headquarters in Mönchengladbach at regular intervals. Our extensive PostgreSQL® support and service experience and our active involvement in the vibrant community allows our PostgreSQL® experts to convey comprehensive and detailed knowledge.

We have provided further information on our PostgreSQL® training sessions for you here.

Open Source Support Center

Have we piqued your interest?

Our experts will be happy to answer your specific questions and support you in choosing the right open source solution for your project.

The credativ®
Open Source Support Center

Our answers to the most frequently asked questions:

Our support is focused on the actual needs of our customers. This means that we naturally offer more support than the traditional support offered by many manufacturers. But what’s important, and this applies for any software that is operated in business-critical areas, is that the operation is appropriately secured. This is where we provide technical support at the manufacturer level with guaranteed service level agreements.
All of our employees are experienced Open Source developers and administrators. We are the replacement for missing manufacturer support, and support the entire lifecycle of your Open Source software by means of our Open Source Support Center. We provide the necessary support and all the services for your entire Open Source stack under one roof.
Our service and support contracts take account of your interests, not those of investors. We deliberately use completely different contract and price models to those of countless international software manufacturers and are proud that our fair support offers are a solid and reliable basis for long-term and successful cooperation with large national and international customers. We also want to provide a model that is completely independent of the usual factors, such as the number of users, the number of CPUs/cores and servers used or similar limiting factors. We would be pleased to discuss further details with you personally. More about the operation of our Open Source Support Centers
We guarantee it! You receive the certainty that you need. We are always there for you. Around the clock, 365 days a year. You can find more information under 24x7 support.
Don’t worry! We operate without an intervening call center. You receive direct access to our Open Source specialists. You can reach our support via central dispatching by phone, ticket system, or email. You can find more information under Availability.
Our Open Source Support Center is located in the Federal Republic of Germany and all our technical specialists are employed on a permanent basis. We provide both national and international support, in German or English as required.
Our technical support covers a range of popular Open Source projects, which are often operated in business-critical applications. You can find a selection of the projects supported by our Open Source Support Center in our software overview. More information is available under Software.
Absolutely! When a technical fault occurs, the cause needs to be determined quickly and precisely, and eliminated, or at least an initial workaround needs to be found. That’s why we offer guaranteed service level agreements for availability as well as for different response times.