alt Hacker NewsSo, yeah, I guess there's much confusion about what a 'managed database' actually is? Because for me, the table stakes are:
-Backups: the provider will push a full generic disaster-recovery backup of my database to an off-provider location at least daily, without the need for a maintenance window
-Optimization: index maintenance and storage optimization are performed automatically and transparently
-Multi-datacenter failover: my database will remain available even if part(s) of my provider are down, with a minimal data loss window (like, 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, depending on SLA and thus plan expenditure)
-Point-in-time backups are performed at an SLA-defined granularity and with a similar retention window, allowing me to access snapshots via a custom DSN, not affecting production access or performance in any way
-Slow-query analysis: notifying me of relevant performance bottlenecks before they bring down production
-Storage analysis: my plan allows for #GB of fast storage, #TB of slow storage: let me know when I'm forecast to run out of either in the next 3 billing cycles or so
Because, well, if anyone provides all of that for a monthly fee, the whole "self-hosting" argument goes out of the window quickly, right? And I say that as someone who absolutely adores self-hosting...
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IMO, the reason to self-host your database is latency.
Yes, I'd say backups and analysis are table stakes for hiring it, and multi-datacenter failover is a relevant nice to have. But the reason to do it yourself is because it's literally impossible to get anything as good as you can build in somebody's else computer.
If you set it up right, you can automate all this as well by self hosting. There is really nothing special about automating backups or multi region fail over.
Self-host things the boss won't call at 3 AM about: logs, traces, exceptions, internal apps, analytics. Don't self-host the database or major services.
Yugabyte open source covers a lot of this
There should be no data loss window with a hosted database
It's even worse when you start finding you're staffing specialized skills. You have the Postgres person, and they're not quite busy enough, but nobody else wants to do what they do. But then you have an issue while they're on vacation, and that's a problem. Now I have a critical service but with a bus factor problem. So now I staff two people who are now not very busy at all. One is a bit ambitious and is tired of being bored. So he's decided we need to implement something new in our Postgres to solve a problem we don't really have. Uh oh, it doesn't work so well, the two spend the next six months trying to work out the kinks with mixed success.