After a successful evaluation period, PostgreSQL 12 is now the default version for new Heroku Postgres databases and an available upgrade for existing databases.

I want to emphasize a few key changes and improvements in Postgres 12:

Native Table Partitioning Concurrent Operations

Native Partitioning was introduced in PostgreSQL 10 and performance improvements for improved parallel processing were added in PostgreSQL 11. Updating tables, altering partitions blocking queries, and executing concurrent operations for Native Partitioning were all improved in PostgreSQL 12. New features include allowing tables to modify partitions without blocking queries, allowing foreign keys to reference...

Today, we’re thrilled to announce four new trusted data integrations that allow data to flow seamlessly and securely between Heroku and external resources in public clouds and private data centers:

• Heroku Postgres via mutual TLS
• Heroku Postgres via PrivateLink
• Apache Kafka on Heroku via PrivateLink
• Heroku Key-Value Store via PrivateLink

These integrations expand Heroku's security and trust boundary to cover the connections to external resources and the data that passes through them. They enable true multi-cloud app and data architectures and keep developers focused on delivering value versus managing infrastructure. Data is the driving force in modern app development, and these...

We are thrilled to announce that Apache Kafka on Heroku Shield is now generally available and certified for handling PHI, PII, and HIPAA-compliant data. Our newest managed data service unifies Heroku Shield, a set of Heroku platform services that offer additional security features needed for building high compliance applications, with Apache Kafka on Heroku, our fully-managed service based on the leading open-source solution for handling event streams.

Organizations of all sizes face relentless pressure to bring better apps and experiences to market, and those with a strong focus on data security like Health and Life Sciences (HLS) organizations need to balance safety and agility. Their...

As outlined in a previous blog post, Heroku Data services undergo routine maintenances for security and patching. In this post, we describe the process used to minimize downtime for Heroku Postgres and Heroku Key-Value Store premium ‘High Availability’ plans and how we optimized the process to perform up to 75% faster.

Data Services Architecture

High availability plans for Postgres and Redis are designed to have two database instances running at the same time. One is a writeable primary database server and the other is a read-only hidden standby. Since the standby is hidden, customers cannot access it during normal operations.

Before starting a planned maintenance, we do our best to...

There are many reasons to choose Heroku Data services, but keeping the services you use secure and up-to-date rank near the top. This foundation of trust is the most important commitment we make to our customers, and frequent and timely maintenances are one way we deliver on this promise.

We do everything we can to minimize downtime, which is typically between 10 – 60 seconds per maintenance. There are ways for you to minimize disruption too (see the tips and tricks below). The rest of the post explains how we think about Heroku Data maintenances, how we perform them, and when we perform them.

An Ounce of Prevention...

Hackers exploit known but unpatched vulnerabilities or out-of-date...