We're constantly involved in improving Postgres on behalf of our users. That kind of work includes building new features into our platform like data clips, tracking down bugs uncovered by our users and getting them fixed, and working to bring the needs of our users to the attention of the developer community driving the project forward.

Of course, all that pales in comparison to the work the community does every day, and there's no bigger demonstration of that than the major PostgreSQL releases which introduce new features and generally come out once a year. When they do, we build support for that version almost immediately, and roll it out to gradually larger audiences as we...

Data clips are available today in beta as a standard feature on all Heroku Postgres databases.

When we share information on the Internet, we do so by sharing URLs. We send URLs for locations, books, videos, and even source code. Until now there hasn't been a convenient way to share data inside a database. That's why we're introducing Data Clips. They are a fast and easy way to unlock the data in your database in the form of a secure URL.

Data Clips allow the results of SQL queries on a Heroku Postgres database to be easily shared. Simply create a query on data.heroku.com, and then share the resulting URL with co-workers, colleagues, or the world. Data clips can be shared...

At the Heroku Department of Data, we are always investigating ways to improve the reliability, security and performance of your database servers. We do this by monitoring the entire ecosystem around it; we monitor the reliability of the platform itself, as well as keeping a close eye on the hardware where your data is hosted on upstream servers. But this also includes listening to the community. We do that by staying involved with our users at developer meetups and hackfests, listening closely to support requests to find and resolve common patterns of pain, as well as any relevant mailing lists.

Whenever we spot a problem, we make it a priority to resolve it.

The last such occasion has a...

One of the benefits of consuming a database through Heroku Postgres is that we are continually improving the service. This benefit is compounded by the fact that our service is based on PostgreSQL, a vibrant and active open source project. The release of PostgreSQL 9.1 had added a number of feature, performance and reliability improvements. These are available today with our beta support for PostgreSQL 9.1.

We have been testing and watching PostgreSQL 9.1 since it became available in September. With the recent release of 9.1.2, it is now ready for prime time on Heroku. Test out PG 9.1 right now with:

$ heroku addons:add heroku-postgresql version=9.1 

PostgreSQL 9.1 can also be selected...

Until now, Heroku's Postgres database service - originally launched in 2007 - has only been available to Heroku customers for use with Heroku platform apps. Today we're excited to announce the launch of Heroku Postgres as a standalone service.

With measured service uptime of four nines (99.99%), and designed data durability of eleven nines (99.999999999%), the service is trustworthy for mission-critical data. As of today, these production-quality Heroku Postgres databases are independently available for use from any cloud platform, provisioned instantly, metered by the second, and without contract.

Battle Tested

Heroku Postgres has successfully and safely written 19 billion...