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ApsaraDB RDS:Create an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance

Last Updated:Jul 25, 2023

This topic describes how to create an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance in the ApsaraDB RDS console. You can also create an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance by calling an API operation.

Prerequisites

The AliyunRDSFullAccess and AliyunBSSOrderAccess policies are attached to the RAM user that you use to create an RDS instance. For more information, see Use RAM for resource authorization.

Procedure

Step 1: Basic Configurations

  1. Go to the ApsaraDB RDS buy page.

  2. Configure the Billing Method parameter.

    Billing Method

    Description

    Benefit

    Subscription

    A subscription RDS instance is an instance for which you pay an upfront fee. If you want to use an RDS instance for a long period of time, we recommend that you select the Subscription billing method. If you select the subscription billing method, configure the Duration parameter in the lower-left corner of the page.

    In most cases, the subscription billing method is more cost-effective than the pay-as-you-go billing method for long-term usage. Alibaba Cloud provides lower prices for longer subscription durations.

    Pay-As-You-Go

    You are charged on an hourly basis for a pay-as-you-go RDS instance based on your actual resource usage. If you want to use an RDS instance for a short period of time, we recommend that you select the Pay-As-You-Go billing method.

    You can create a Pay-As-You-Go RDS instance. After you confirm that the created RDS instance meets your business requirements, you can change the billing method of the RDS instance from pay-as-you-go to subscription.

    You can release a pay-as-you-go RDS instance based on your business requirements. The billing cycle of a pay-as-you-go RDS instance immediately stops after you release the RDS instance.

    Serverless

    Serverless RDS instances are a new deployment model for RDS instances. This deployment model allows you to scale CPU and memory resources in real time and allows pay-as-you-go billing for computing resources. We recommend that you select the Serverless billing method so that you can quickly and independently scale computing resources to respond to the computing requirements during peak hours.

    If you select Serverless, you are charged based on your consumption of resources for workloads. This can help reduce costs.

    Note

    You can view the price in the lower-right corner of the page. The price is displayed only after you configure all required parameters.

  3. Configure the Region parameter.

    You can select a region in which you want to create the RDS instance.

    • If you have purchased an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance and want the ECS instance to communicate with the RDS instance over an internal network, select the region in which the ECS instance resides. For more information, see What is ECS? If the RDS instance and the ECS instance reside in different regions, these instances cannot communicate over an internal network. In this case, these instances cannot deliver the optimal performance.

      Important

      After an RDS instance is created, you cannot change the region of the RDS instance.

    • If your application is deployed on an on-premises server or computer, we recommend that you select a region that is in close proximity to the on-premises server or computer. This way, you can connect to the RDS instance from your application by using the public endpoint of the RDS instance.

  4. Configure the Database Engine, Edition, Architecture, and Storage Type parameters.

    1. Configure the Database Engine.

      Select PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL 10, PostgreSQL 11, PostgreSQL 12, PostgreSQL 13, PostgreSQL 14, and PostgreSQL 15 are supported.

      Note

      ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL provides the Babelfish feature that is developed based on the Babelfish for PostgreSQL open source project. This feature enables your RDS instance that runs PostgreSQL 13 or PostgreSQL 14 to be compatible with Transact-SQL (T-SQL) statements. If you want to connect your SQL Server application or client to an RDS instance that runs PostgreSQL, we recommend that you select Enable Babelfish when you create the RDS instance. For more information, see Introduction to Babelfish.

    2. Configure the Edition parameter.

      Edition

      Description

      Benefit

      Basic

      In RDS Basic Edition, the database system consists of only a primary RDS instance.

      RDS Basic Edition is cost-effective and is suitable for learning and testing scenarios.

      Note

      RDS instances that run RDS Basic Edition require a long period of time to restart or recover from faults.

      High-availability

      This is the recommended RDS edition. In RDS High-availability Edition, the database system consists of a primary RDS instance and a secondary RDS instance. The primary and secondary RDS instances work in high availability mode. You can create read-only RDS instances and attach the read-only RDS instances to the primary RDS instance.

      RDS High-availability Edition is suitable for production environments and is suitable for more than 80% of business scenarios.

      Note
      • The valid values of the Edition parameter vary based on the values of the Region and Database Engine parameters that you specify.

      • For more information, see Overview of ApsaraDB RDS editions.

    3. Configure the Architecture parameter. You can select X86 or ARM.

      Note

      For more information about the x86 architecture and the ARM architecture, see Architectures.

    4. Configure the Storage Type parameter.

      Item

      ESSD (recommended)

      Local SSD

      Scalability

      ★★★★★

      • The storage capacity can reach up to 32 TB.

      • No transient connections occur during storage capacity expansion.

      • You can upgrade, downgrade, create, or release an RDS instance within minutes.

      • The automatic storage expansion is supported.

      ★★

      • You can increase the storage capacity up to 6 TB.

      • Transient connections occur during storage expansion.

      • A few hours may be required to upgrade, downgrade, create, or release an RDS instance.

      • Automatic storage expansion is not supported.

      Performance

      ★★★★★

      • PL1<PL2<PL3

      • A performance level 2 (PL2) enhanced SSD (ESSD) delivers twice the IOPS and throughput of a PL1 ESSD.

      • A PL3 ESSD delivers IOPS that is up to 20 times the IOPS delivered by a PL1 ESSD. A PL3 ESSD also delivers throughput that is up to 11 times the throughput delivered by a PL1 ESSD.

      Note

      ApsaraDB RDS provides three storage types. For more information, see Storage types.

      ★★★★★

      Backup

      ★★★★★

      • A backup can be completed in minutes or seconds.

      • The highest backup frequency is once every 15 minutes.

      ★★★

      • A backup requires a long period of time to complete.

      • The highest backup frequency is once every day.

      Note
      • The valid values of the Storage Type parameter vary based on the values of the Database Engine and Edition parameters that you specify.

      • For more information about storage types, see Storage types.

  5. Select a zone for the RDS instance and configure the Deployment Method parameter.

    • Select a zone.

      • No significant differences exist between the zones in the same region.

      • If the RDS instance resides in the same zone as the ECS instance on which your application is deployed, these instances can deliver optimal performance. If the RDS instance and the ECS instance reside in different zones in the same region, the performance of the RDS instance and the ECS instance is slightly lower than the performance of the RDS instance and the ECS instance that reside in the same zone.

    • Select a Deployment Method.

      • Multi-zone Deployment: This is the recommended deployment method. The primary RDS instance and the secondary RDS instance reside in different zones of a region to provide cross-zone disaster recovery.

        If you set the Deployment Method parameter to Multi-zone Deployment, you must configure the Zone of Primary Node and Zone of Secondary Node parameters.

      • Single-zone Deployment: The RDS instance and its secondary RDS instance reside in the same zone.

        If you set the Edition parameter to Basic, only the Single-zone Deployment method is available.

      Note
      • If you use an RDS edition in which primary and secondary RDS instances are provisioned, such as RDS High-availability Edition, we recommend that you select Multi-zone Deployment to implement cross-zone disaster recovery.

      • If Sold Out appears in the upper-right corner of a zone name, this zone does not have sufficient resources. In this case, you must switch to another zone.

  6. Configure the Instance Type parameter.

    1. Configure the Category parameter. You can select General-purpose or Dedicated.

      Category

      Description

      Benefit

      General-purpose

      A general-purpose RDS instance exclusively occupies the allocated memory and I/O resources.

      A general-purpose RDS instance shares CPU and storage resources with the other general-purpose RDS instances that are deployed on the same host.

      General-purpose RDS instances are cost-effective.

      Dedicated

      A dedicated RDS instance exclusively occupies the allocated CPU, memory, storage, and I/O resources.

      Note

      The dedicated host instance family is the highest configuration of the dedicated instance family. A dedicated host RDS instance exclusively occupies all the CPU, memory, storage, and I/O resources of the host on which the RDS instance is deployed.

      A dedicated RDS instance delivers higher performance and higher stability.

      Note

      An RDS instance that runs RDS Basic Edition does not support the dedicated instance family.

    2. Configure detailed specifications, such as the number of CPU cores, memory capacity, maximum number of connections, and maximum IOPS.

      • For a test environment, we recommend that you select an instance type that provides two or more CPU cores.

      • For a production environment, we recommend that you select an instance type that provides four or more CPU cores.

      Note

      For more information, see Primary ApsaraDB RDS instance types.

  7. Configure the Capacity parameter.

    The valid values of the Capacity parameter vary based on the values of the Storage Type and Instance Type parameters that you specify. You can adjust the storage capacity at a step size of 5 GB.

  8. Optional. If you set the Billing Method parameter to Subscription, configure the Duration parameter based on your business requirements.

  9. In the lower-right corner of the page, click Next: Instance Configuration.

Step 2: Instance Configuration

  1. Configure the Network Type parameter.

    1. Set the Network Type parameter to VPC.

    2. Configure the VPC and VSwitch of Primary Node parameters.

      If you want to connect the RDS instance and an ECS instance by using the internal endpoint of the ECS instance, make sure that these instances reside in the same region and the same virtual private cloud (VPC). If the RDS instance and ECS instance reside in different regions or VPCs, you cannot connect the RDS instance and ECS instance over an internal network.

      Note
      • You can connect the RDS instance and the ECS instance over an internal network even if the instances use different vSwitches in the same VPC.

      • If you set the Deployment Method parameter to Multi-zone Deployment in the Basic Configurations step, you must also configure the VSwitch of Secondary Node parameter.

    3. Configure the Add to Whitelist parameter to specify whether to add the CIDR block of the selected VPC to a whitelist of the RDS instance.

      If you select Yes for the Add to Whitelist parameter, the ECS instances that reside in the selected VPC can access the RDS instance.

      Note

      If you select No for the Add to Whitelist parameter, you can configure a whitelist after the RDS instance is created. For more information, see Configure an IP address whitelist for an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance.

    4. Configure the Port parameter.

      Valid values: 1000 to 5999. Default value: 5432. You can initialize the port when you create the RDS instance.

  2. Configure the Parameter Template parameter.

    If you set the Storage Type parameter to ESSD PL1, ESSD PL2, or ESSD PL3, you can specify a parameter template when you create the RDS instance. If you do not specify a parameter template, the default system parameter template is used. You can select a custom parameter template. For more information about how to create a custom parameter template, see Use a parameter template to configure the parameters of ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instances.

  3. Configure the Release Protection parameter.

    If you set the Billing Method parameter to Pay-As-You-Go, you can select Release Protection to prevent the RDS instance from being released due to unintended operations. For more information, see Enable or disable the release protection feature for an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance.

  4. Configure the Minor Version Upgrade Policy parameter.

    • If you set the Storage Type parameter to ESSD PL1, ESSD PL2, or ESSD PL3, you can specify a policy to update the minor engine version of the RDS instance when you create the RDS instance. The default value of the Minor Version Upgrade Policy parameter is Automatic Upgrade. If the minor engine version of your RDS instance is outdated, the system automatically delivers active O&M tasks to update the minor engine version from time to time. The system notifies you of the tasks by using methods such as emails and internal messages. The system automatically updates the minor engine version of your RDS instance within the maintenance window that you specified. For more information, see Set the maintenance window of an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance.

      Note

      After the RDS instance is created, you can go to the Basic Information page of the RDS instance to modify the value of the Minor Version Upgrade Policy parameter. For more information, see Update the minor engine version of an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance.

    • The policy that is used to update the minor engine version of the RDS instance. You can select a minor engine version when you create the RDS instance. If you do not select a minor engine version, the latest version of AliPG is used by default.

      Example:

      rds_postgres_1400_20220830_14.4

      The following list describes the fields in the preceding example:

      • rds: the RDS instance

      • postgres: the PostgreSQL database

      • 1400: the major version of PostgreSQL, which is 14 in this example

      • 20220830: the version of AliPG, which can be 20220130 or later For more information, see Release notes for AliPG.

      • 14.4: the minor version of PostgreSQL

      Note

      If you select Enable Babelfish in the Basic Configurations step, the minor engine version of the RDS instance is displayed in the following format:

      rds_postgres_1400_20220630_babelfish_14.4
      • If your RDS instance runs PostgreSQL 13, you can select the AliPG version of 20220228 or later.

      • If your RDS instance runs PostgreSQL 14, you can select the AliPG version of 20220630 or later.

  5. Configure the Resource Group parameter.

    The resource group to which the RDS instance belongs. You can retain the default resource group or select a custom resource group based on your business requirements.

  6. Optional. Configure Babelfish-related parameters.

    The following parameters take effect only when you select Enable Babelfish in the Basic Configurations step.

    • Babelfish Migration Mode: the migration mode for the RDS instance for which Babelfish is enabled

      • single-db: You can create only one SQL Server database on an RDS instance for which Babelfish is enabled and create a standard PostgreSQL schema for the database.

      • multi-db: You can create multiple SQL Server databases and create different PostgreSQL schemas for the databases. You must name the schemas in the <Database name>_<Schema name> format to prevent name conflicts.

      Note

      For more information, see Migration modes.

    • Initial Account: the username of the Babelfish management account that is used to connect to the RDS instance over the TDS port

      Important

      This account is a privileged account and cannot be deleted after it is created.

    • Password: the password of the Babelfish management account

      Note

      You can change the password after the RDS instance is created. For more information, see Reset the password of an account on an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance.

  7. Configure the Time Zone parameter.

  8. Configure the SLR Authorization parameter.

    If this is the first time you create an RDS instance after October 10, 2022, you must create the AliyunServiceRoleForRdsPgsqlOnEcs service-linked role (SLR) for ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL. This way, your RDS instance can mount Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) and establish network connections.

    Note
  9. Optional. Configure the Privileged Account parameter.

    You can create a privileged account when you create an RDS instance. If you select Later, you can create a privileged account after the RDS instance is created.

    Note

    For more information about privileged accounts and how to create accounts, see Create a database and an account on an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance.

  10. In the lower-right corner of the page, click Next: Confirm Order.

Step 3: Confirm Order

  1. Confirm the configuration of the RDS instance in the Parameters section, configure the Purchase Plan and Duration parameters, read and select Terms of Service, and then click Pay Now to complete the payment. You must specify the Duration parameter only when you select the subscription billing method for the RDS instance.

    Note

    If you select the subscription billing method for the RDS instance, we recommend that you select Auto-Renew Enabled. This way, you can prevent interruptions on your application even if you forget to renew the RDS instance.

  2. View the new RDS instance.

    Go to the Instances page. In the top navigation bar, select the region in which the RDS instance resides. Then, find the RDS instance based on the Creation Time parameter.

    Note

    The system requires 1 to 10 minutes to create an RDS instance. You can refresh the page to view the new RDS instance.

What to do next

Create a database and an account on an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance

FAQ

After I create an RDS instance, why am I unable to find the RDS instance?

Possible cause

Description

Suggestion

Incorrect region

The RDS instance does not reside in the region that you selected.

In the top navigation bar, select the region where the RDS instance resides. Then, you can find the RDS instance.

Insufficient resources

The zone that you selected cannot provide sufficient resources.

If the RDS instance cannot be created, you can go to the Orders page in the Billing Management console to view the refunded fees.

We recommend that you select a different zone and try again.

References