Enterprise PostgreSQL Hits the Cloud as EDB’s ‘BigAnimal’

EDB yesterday took the wraps off BigAnimal, the name of its new fully managed PostgreSQL database running in the Azure cloud. With compatibility for Oracle’s database, BigAnimal looks to pilfer disgruntled database customers.

According to EDB (formerly EnterpriseDB), BigAnimal incorporates all of the granular controls and enterprise capabilities that it has been developing in the PostgreSQL database over the past 15 years. All of the enterprise-strength functions available in PostgreSQL Advanced Server are available with BigAnimal as a fully managed service that runs in the customers’ own Microsoft Azure account.

Plain vanilla PostgreSQL running in the cloud is great, but it lacks certain security, performance management, and high availability capabilities that enterprises need to run at scale in the cloud. “Without the transparency, control, and performance tuning required for their most demanding workloads, they are held back from moving fully into the cloud,” EDB says in its November 2 announcement.

BigAnimal unleashes that full-tusked force upon customers’ OLTP applications, it says. It allows users to configure high availability clusters with a few button clicks, and also provides access to PostgreSQL “super user” functions. Plus, with compatibility for the Oracle database, BigAnimal provides a possible migration path for disgruntled Big Red customers by enabling them to run their Oracle queries and Oracle code on the supersized version of PostgreSQL.

EDB president and CEO Ed Boyajian says BigAnimal is a transformational offering that was built in direct response to what his customers said was missing from existing cloud PostgreSQL offerings

“We’ve made no compromises,” he says in a press release. “This means you get fanatical attention from the biggest team in Postgres, native compatibility with Oracle database technology, and extreme high availability. And we run it all inside your cloud account.”

IDC research vice president Carl Olofson says the release of BigAnimal puts EDB in a position to capitalize as herds of enterprise customers migrate data workloads to the cloud.

“In 2021, we saw a significant rise in cloud infrastructure spend and expect it to soon surpass non-cloud infrastructure,” Olofson says in EDB’s press release. “With this growing reliance on cloud platforms, many companies don’t have the in-house skills to deploy, manage, and optimize their databases. Considering EDB’s long track record of building and supporting Postgres, companies have a strong option for transitioning smoothly and optimizing their cloud database operations.”

BigAnimal runs on Azure, but plans are underway to support AWS and Google Cloud in the future.

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