PostgreSQL — Economy

Beta Warning

Please note that breaking changes may still occur during the beta period. We recommend that you do not rely on the service until it is generally available. During this period, resource management through Cockpit or our command-line tool nctl may be limited or unavailable.

Databases in the Economy tier run in a logically separated tenant on a shared, multi-tenant environment managed by Nine. This makes them a perfect fit for non-production or low-traffic sites. Due to their fast startup time, they are also ideal for automated testing pipelines.

The Economy tier provides a single database, whereas the Business tier offers a dedicated database instance where you can create and manage multiple databases.

The following table gives an overview of the differences between the tiers:

Tier	Economy (Beta) Single Databases	Business Dedicated Instances	First Managed Service
Manageable in Cockpit / nctl	☑️	☑️	✖️
Backups	☑️	☑️	☑️
Dedicated Resources	✖️	☑️	☑️
Custom Configuration	✖️	Limited options	☑️
Cluster Deployments	✖️	✖️	☑️
Starts at			Please reach out to:

All On-Demand database tiers are backed by Nine's years of experience operating Managed Services and built on the same infrastructure and building blocks. The Economy and Business tiers make this expertise available as a self-service offering, tailored to different needs and budgets, from lightweight single databases to fully dedicated instances. Billing is automated based on the resources used.

Getting Started

You can use nctl or Cockpit, our web interface to get started:

Cockpit

1. Create a New Service directly in Cockpit to get started.
2. Retrieve the credentials from the overview page. Note the FQDN, username and password.
   The database will have the same name as the user.
3. Connect to the newly created database:

   psql --host ${FQDN} --dbname ${USER} --username ${USER} # database has the same name as the user

nctl

1. Ensure you are logged in with nctl:

   nctl auth login

2. Create a postgresdatabase:

   nctl create postgresdatabase my-test-database

3. Connect to the newly created database:

   nctl get postgresdatabase my-test-database # note the FQDN
   nctl get postgresdatabase my-test-database --print-user # note the user
   nctl get postgresdatabase my-test-database --print-password # note the password
   psql --host ${FQDN} --dbname ${USER} --username ${USER} # database has the same name as the user

On-Demand databases can be managed via Cockpit, our command-line tool nctl or by directly using the API.

Billing is automated based on the resources used. Nine's automated management ensures the smooth operation of the service.

On-Demand databases offer limited configuration options. If more extensive settings are required, use our Managed Service.

Updates and Maintenance Windows

Security and software updates are generally performed during the maintenance window.

Therefore, short service interruptions may occur during this maintenance window without prior notice.

Monitoring

Nine monitors your database with a monitoring system 24x7. In the event of a malfunction, an (on-call) technician from Nine is automatically alerted and restores proper operation as quickly as possible.

Full utilization of resources is not assessed as a malfunction, as the size of the instance can be increased or decreased at any time.

Configuration Options

On-Demand Services come with a sensible base configuration that is suitable for most setups. They also provide the ability to change certain configuration options. Adjusting these configuration options can result in a restart of the instance.

The instance can be customized with the following configuration options:

Name

The name of the instance can be freely chosen, but must be unique. Once created, the name cannot be changed.

Location

Depending on available resources, instances can be created in these locations:

API / Cockpit Name	Name	Location	Notes
nine-cz42	ColoZüri 4.2	Altstetten, Zürich
nine-es34	NTT Zürich 1	Rümlang
nine-cz41	ColoZüri 4.1	Altstetten, Zürich	New resources cannot be created in this location.

The location cannot be changed after the resource was created.

Collation

The database collation can be set during creation and cannot be changed afterwards. If not specified, the collation C.UTF-8 is used.

In Cockpit, the collation can be configured on the initial creation form. With nctl, use the --collation option:

nctl create postgresdatabase my-database --collation=en_US.UTF-8

Pricing

Databases are split into different packages:

	S	M	L
Storage space max.	1 GB	5 GB	10 GB
Max. Connections	20	20	20
Monthly fees

The package is automatically selected based on the current database size. Storage is capped at 10 GB.

Connection

User

A user and password are generated, when the instance is created. Check the Getting Started section for details on how to retrieve the credentials.

TLS

note

The CA certificate will not match the hostname of the service. You may need to disable hostname verification explicitly.

The on-demand services only accept connections secured by TLS. Depending on the client or library used, it may be necessary to explicitly enable TLS.

The TLS certificate is self-signed. In addition to enabling TLS transport encryption, you may need to provide the certificate authority used for validation.

You can retrieve the CA either through Cockpit or nctl:

Cockpit

1. Open the On-Demand Services overview and select the respective service.
2. The CA is available under the resource's Certificate tab.

nctl

1. Ensure you are logged in with nctl:

   nctl auth login

2. Retrieve the certificate:

   nctl get postgresdatabase my-test-postgresdatabase --print-ca-cert

Importing an existing database

To quickly get up and running, you can import an existing database, for example from your local development environment. It is recommended to use the following options:

# create a dump of the database, ensure it does not contain the create database statement
pg_dump --no-owner --no-privileges my_postgresdatabase > my_postgresdatabase.sql
# import the dump into the newly created database
psql --host ${FQDN} --dbname ${USER} --username ${USER} < my_postgresdatabase.sql

Backups

Backups for the Economy tier are stored in S3-compatible object storage. They are created daily and can be downloaded using any S3-compatible client tool.

Downloading and Restoring a Backup

info

One-click restore is currently being worked on. In the meantime, backups can be downloaded and restored manually.

You can find the backup credentials and bucket details in Cockpit or via nctl.

Use s3cmd to list and download your backups:

# list available backups
s3cmd ls s3://backup-bucket/

# download the latest backup
s3cmd get s3://backup-bucket/dump.sql.zst ./dump.sql.zst

After downloading, you can restore the backup:

MySQL

zstd -d --stdout dump.sql.zst | mysql --user=${USER} --host=${FQDN} --password=${PASSWORD} --database=${USER}

PostgreSQL

zstd -d --stdout dump.sql.zst | psql --host=${FQDN} --username=${USER} --dbname=${USER}

For more S3 client tools and configuration options, see Object Storage Client Tools.

Storage

Storage is capped at 10 GB (L package). If your database requires more space, we recommend migrating to a Business tier database, which offers dedicated resources and automatic storage expansion. You can do this by downloading a backup and restoring it on a new Business tier instance.