EDB Postgres® 17 Transactional Database Highlights

Accelerate legacy application modernization, AI innovation, and secure open source software adoption

This blog was co-authored by Adam Wright and Tim Boutin. 

The recent PostgreSQL 17 release won over the open source community, particularly the Postgres DBAs now equipped with incremental backup, JSON enhancements, optimization & logical replication features that enhance effective management of always-on database operations. EDB’s contributions to PostgreSQL 17 promoted community innovation and leadership by delivering enhanced performance, reliability, and versatility features, and this functionality is available today on EDB Postgres AI transactional database, tools, and extensions. EDB’s PostgreSQL17 analysis spotlighted several of these features, including the sub-transaction cache redesign that boosts performance by up to 100X for complex business logic, as well as incremental backup features that provides greater flexibility regarding backup types, protection, and point-in-time recoverability for many scenarios

Building on that momentum, the EDB Postgres 17 database updates announced today accelerate enterprise efforts to modernize legacy applications, manage AI application development in a well-governed, sovereign environment, and leverage EDB Postgres AI as a trusted secure open source software solution.

Let’s dive into these latest EDB Postgres AI transactional database innovations.

Extend EDB Postgres AI value with advanced incorporation of PostgreSQL 17 features

EDB Postgres 17 enables users to migrate and leverage the latest PostgreSQL capabilities in our EDB Postgres AI platform. EDB Postgres Advanced Server (EPAS), EDB Postgres Extended (PGE) Server, and PostgreSQL releases have already merged with upstream PostgreSQL 17, including features that enable enterprises to:

• Dramatically reducing recovery time in disaster recovery scenarios by integrating incremental backup and recovery functionality in EPAS and PGE. EDB customers can reduce storage costs and realize faster recovery to minimize application downtime without relying on previous processes that frequently involved cobbling together incremental backup solutions using operating systems and third-party tools, which added complexity and risk. 
• Enhance developer productivity and Postgres flexibility with expanded JSON support. JSON_TABLE features simplify the integration of relational and non-relational data for reporting, analytics, and data warehousing. By seamlessly converting JSON data into a relational format, developers can bypass parsing JSON at the application layer, streamlining tasks like data aggregation (e.g., sum, average, count) and conditional filtering. In significantly reducing development time, these enhancements minimize the amount of application code required when working with JSON data, offering the functions needed to unlock deeper business insights.
• Ease migrations from proprietary databases to EDB Postgres AI, with full support for XML DOM and XML types.
• Realize increased stability of failover for replication by using enhancements that convert a physical replica to a logical replica, as well as failover of logical slots.
• Improve Postgres troubleshooting visualization, with Optimizer Memory Usage.

We want to advance our customers’ use of PostgreSQL v17 features in the unified EDB Postgres AI platform transactional, analytics, and AI workloads, so EPAS- and PGE-supported software is now certified with v17 on all supported platforms (OS/architectures).

Database Distributions Released Versions

EDB Postgres Advanced Server 17.2.0

EDB Postgres Extended Server        17.2.0

PostgreSQL 17.2

Additionally, all supported software with Break/Fix entitlement as components of EPAS and PGE have already completed certification with PostgreSQL, ensuring optimal compatibility for a smooth experience for EDB customers. 

Innovate faster with new EPAS features

Enterprises rely on unmatched Oracle compatibility integrated in EDB Postgres Advanced Server to assure successful migrations to EDB Postgres AI, as well as modernize legacy applications. New EPAS features further promote Oracle-to-Postgres outcomes by:

• Accelerating Oracle migrations for DBAs by ensuring SLA compliance: DBA concerns about inefficient indexing with large Postgres tables and associated business SLA non-compliance can sidetrack Oracle migrations. EDB has addressed these issues with EPAS Global Indexes functionality, which promotes better system utilization and resource allocation, while reducing the needs for migration hardware. Once deployed on EPAS, using Global Indexes also increases customer satisfaction by promoting fast page loads and responsive UI performance. EPAS data structure does not need to change as part of the migration, so the EPAS business logic employed can remain intact post-implementation.
• Further simplifying migration for legacy Oracle applications, with: 
  • XMLType Support: Enables support for Oracle XML packages and additional XML-related features, reducing rewrites for legacy XML applications.
  • BFILE Support: Allows for the migration of business logic in the database for binary files, such as graphics, documents, and multimedia, with fewer rewrites, ensuring a smoother transition from Oracle to EPAS.
• Advancing database migration and modernization efforts with closer EPAS integration with EDB Migration Portal: EPAS provides additional implementations of built-in Oracle functions (e.g., NLS_* functions), packages (e.g., DMBS_ASSERT, DBMS_XMLDOM), and package subprograms (e.g., in DBMS_LOB).
• Further reduce app rewrites for Oracle Migrations with PGTT support: EDB already reduces Oracle-to-Postgres application rewrites by up to 95%, and we’re adding to our capabilities by adding support for Global Temporary Tables (PGTT), which are Oracle-style Global Temporary Tables. PGTT support enables Oracle users who are transitioning to Postgres to reuse business logic that relied on Global Temporary Tables in Postgres. Support for this open source extension has been added to EPAS, as well as PGE and PostgreSQL.

Take a look at our EPAS Documentation updates for more detailed info about these features.

Enhance security and Postgres compliance readiness with EDB Postgres AI Tools and Extensions features

The EDB Postgres AI Tools and Extensions announced today offer innovative secure open source software and compliance support to our customers and more, and they have been tested and certified to work with the PostgreSQL v17 distributions. These features include:

• EDB Software Bill of Materials (SBOM): Customers can realize improved Postgres supply chain trust with EDB Software Bill of Materials reports included in EDB Postgres AI software repositories. SBOM reports offer a detailed inventory of components and dependencies that comprise an EDB software package, enabling customers to more easily identify and mitigate potential security vulnerabilities and integrate this information in their vulnerability management cybersecurity reporting. SBOM reports are available for EPAS and EDB Postgres Distributed software packages through the EDB Trust Center. Get all the details in our Secure Open Source Software Use Case.
• Iron Bank Support: With this release, we’re extending Iron Bank Support for government agencies and security-minded organizations with the EDB CloudNativePG Cluster operator and associated EPAS operand being distributed through the Iron Bank repository. Learn more in today’s EDB Secure Open Source Software blog.
• Standards compliance support: Trusted Postgres Architect 23.35 eases EDB Postgres AI database compliance with Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) and Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmark standards.STIG compliance is available with EPAS version 13 or newer. CIS compliance is available with PostgreSQL, EDB Postgres Extended, and EPAS 16 or newer. Get the full story on easing your STIG and CIS compliance cycles.

Improve enterprise-grade backup and recovery strategies

EDB maintains the open source Barman (Backup and Recovery Manager) tool, and we have collaborated with the community to introduce functionality that enhances the advances made in the 3.11 release, including the “Resources saving” metric that estimates resources saved by taking incremental backups, as compared to the full cluster size (full backup). Barman 3.12 introduces:

• Full FIPS compatibility, which assists Barman users looking to meet stringent security and compliance requirements
• AWS snapshot locking—first WORM or tamper-proof feature for anti-Ransomware protection
• Write Ahead Logging enhancements, including adding WAL compression for lz4 and zstd, as well as restoring the ability to fetch the WAL files compressed, rather than decompressed, to save on network usage. Additionally, Barman 3.12 changes the method used to upload WAL files to the cloud using Barman Cloud Scripts

These features build upon the incremental backup features now integrated in EDB Postgres Advanced Server (EPAS) and EDB Postgres Extended (PGE) Server, thanks in large part to the efforts of the open source community.

Summary

EDB Postgres AI databases offer secure, compliant, and flexible PostgreSQL, enabling modern, data-intensive solutions while ensuring compatibility with legacy systems for business continuity and advanced workloads, including analytics and AI.

Collectively, these EDB Postgres AI transactional database updates provide customers with more robust and flexible solutions for their data needs, reduce the total cost of ownership, and deliver more value from a single platform.

Beyond the transactional platform enhancements discussed in this blog, our latest EDB Postgres AI release re-imagines how global enterprises can deploy and maximize Postgres across their business. As part of these enhancements, we’ve unveiled EDB Postgres AI Hybrid DBaaS (public cloud, hybrid cloud, and bare metal), as well as an Omni-Data Platform that unifies all data models in EDB Postgres AI for faster insights and streamlined application development. Learn more by reading our EDB Postgres AI announcement blog and Press Release.