A Year of Data at Engine Yard

2012 is almost over and we want to give everyone an update on what the Data Team has been working on. We have a new database version available for all customers, and a preview of what will be shipping soon. So sit tight because we have a lot to tell!

First, let’s talk about Postgres. At the beginning of the year we incorporated PostgreSQL 9.1 into our stack. A few months ago we made it the default database for new environments. We had an opportunity to tell the story of how we integrated PostgreSQL into our stack at Postgres Open 2012 in Chicago. We’d like to thank the PostgreSQL community for the extremely warm welcome and we look forward to strengthening our relationship and support.

The number of environments running PostgreSQL continues to grow and today we’d like to announce that PostgreSQL 9.2 is available in Early Access for all customers.

We are very excited about the features that are included in PostgreSQL 9.2, like native JSON support, range types, enhancements to replication, and overall server performance. Over the next weeks we’ll be updating our supported extensions to be compatible with 9.2 so watch the repo if you are considering to upgrade and are using extensions.

We’ve made a guide to help you get started with Postgres 9.2 on Engine Yard. Give it a try and let us know what you think. We want to progress this version to GA as fast as we can and your feedback is an important part of our release process.

MySQL Updates

In early September we released enhancements to our supported MySQL versions. We have enabled binary logging on replica databases to eliminate the need to restart the replica when promoting it to the master role. We have also enabled mixed mode replication for MySQL 5.1 and 5.5, and we will be finally switching the default engine from MyISAM to InnoDB before the year ends.

Database-less Environments

Environments with no relational database became available this year. Thanks to your feedback we were able to make this feature generally available for all customers and release a few recipes that allow you to connect to databases like RDS.

New Directions … and Science!

We have a brand new Data Scientist! David Coallier is working hard to extract relevant information about our platform and our customers’ experience. We look forward to the results of his work and plan to collaborate closely with him to incorporate his findings into new products and enhancements.

What’s on Tap?

Painless Replica Promotion

We’ve been thinking a lot about database replicas. We’re working on a way to promote DB replicas from the UI and nearly have the edge cases and bugs ironed out. Expect it to be available as soon as we are satisfied.

Stack Expansion

We had the privilege of presenting a preview of an exciting new product at RICON, Basho’s Distributed Systems Conference.

Riak in the Cloud - Ines Sombra and Michael Brodhead, RICON2012 from Basho Technologies on Vimeo.

We are currently using and testing our first productized NoSQL database. Riak will be a first-class citizen in our stack starting Q1 of 2013. We are very excited about the changes pioneered by our upcoming support for Riak and we are looking forward to sharing this product with you.

2012 has been a good year for Data at Engine Yard and we expect 2013 to be even better! We will tackle more complicated problems, simplify and enhance our stack, and make it easier and more reliable than ever to store your data with Engine Yard.

Thank you for trusting us with your data!