The

future of
PostgreSQL
is here.
And it’s built for you.
AlloyDB: The new way to PostgreSQL
Hit the limits of
PostgreSQL?
WARNING: Scaling an app can lead
to frustration, burnout,
We get it. It’s frustrating to think that your database is
and career-ending rage
episodes (!!!)
holding you back. After all, you can change your own code,
Type “help” for help.
Or, try [something new].
but you can’t change the database… or can you?

Like many of you, we love building with PostgreSQL — there’s

a reason it’s such a popular open-source database. So, we
took our love for PostgreSQL and supercharged it with the
best of Google to build AlloyDB for PostgreSQL. AlloyDB is
our 100% PostgreSQL compatible database with built-in gen
AI capabilities, that runs anywhere. Every aspect is designed
for developers like you — to help with your day-to-day role
and to drive your ambition forward.

In this e-book, we’ll explore the key features that redefine

what’s possible with PostgreSQL.

1 Faster
2 Better
3 Stronger
4 Smarter
5 Cheat sheet
6 What’s next?
2
01_Faster

AlloyDB is more
than 4x faster
than standard
PostgreSQL for
transactional
workloads.
TL;DR

Need superior speed without

sacrificing accuracy and cost?
AlloyDB has you covered.

SELECT name, transactions_per_minute

FROM database_stats
ORDER BY transactions_per_minute
LIMIT 2
> | name | transactions_per_minute |
> |-----------------|-------------------------|
> | AlloyDB 16vCPU | 614,797 txn per minute |
> | Postgres 16vCPU | 140,942 txn per minute |

Source: Google Internal Data, March 2024 3

01_Faster
Wish your PostgreSQL Should reporting take
was 4x faster? 2 hours or 2 minutes?

Whisper it: being a developer can be, err, challenging. Launch days, monthly reporting, business insights:
database professionals are the natural gatekeepers
In 2024, every industry — from e-commerce to of crucial organizational information. Which is
finance to gaming — is reporting huge demands on fine, until you’re on a deadline and the distracting
workloads. For developers, this means the stakes requests start pouring in.
are high and the pressure is on. Of course, speed
alone doesn’t make a database — which is why we With AlloyDB’s built-in columnar engine, you
built AlloyDB to be not just faster, but more reliable can run analytical queries up to 100x faster
and efficient when working at scale. It’s about than standard PostgreSQL. This isn’t just about
giving you the tools for smoother, less stressful speeding up — we rigorously ensured there will
processing of high-volume transactions so you can be zero impact on operational performance when
actually enjoy building your apps. running business intelligence, reporting, and hybrid
transactional and analytical workloads (HTAP).
At AlloyDB’s core is a storage-optimized database You can also stream data or use federated queries
engine that’s 100% PostgreSQL compatible. Because with BigQuery and call machine learning models in
we had access to the same Google infrastructure Vertex AI directly within a query or transaction.
that runs popular services such as YouTube, Search,
Maps, and Gmail, we were able to think big and AlloyDB provides up to 2x better price-performance
create a database that disaggregates compute and compared to self-managed PostgreSQL.
storage at every layer of the stack. AlloyDB also
scales horizontally with load-balanced, low-latency Do you like the sound of AlloyDB but are wondering
read pool instances. Never again will you have to about the costs? You can show this at the next budget
choose between scale, reliability, and cost — instead, meeting: AlloyDB provides up to 2x better price-
you can enjoy a database that’s 4x faster than performance compared to self-managed PostgreSQL.
standard PostgreSQL for transactional workloads.
Developer insight
“4x faster means even my dodgy code is fast enough!”

We knew that Google Cloud

databases offer exceptional scalability
A database
and performance, but we didn’t expect that slows you
the superior performance and fast down?
analytical capabilities we get from
AlloyDB. We rely on AlloyDB to power
all of our core transactional processes, Or one that
including user profiles, loyalty program accelerates
details, and offer redemptions. It
ensures our APIs have reliable, low- your success?
latency access to this critical data.

JESÚS ANTONIO CANALES DIEZ

PLATFORM TECH LEAD, LOYAL GURU

Source: Google Internal Data, March 2024 4

02_Better

AlloyDB Omni is
more than 2x faster
than standard
PostgreSQL for
transactional
workloads.

TL;DR

With a downloadable version, AlloyDB

can tackle any project, anywhere.

docker run --name my-omni \

-e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=NEW_PASSWORD \
-d google/alloydbomni

Source: Google Internal Data, March 2024 5

02_Better
A cloud database that You work around the
holds you back? Or one world. Shouldn’t your
that runs anywhere? database?

Running your apps in the cloud is great, sure. We’ve also launched the AlloyDB Omni Kubernetes
But some workloads need to run on site - you operator, which simplifies common database tasks
can’t move an oil rig, a telco facility, or a retail such as database provisioning, backups, high
store into the cloud. So flexibility has become the availability, secure connectivity, and observability,
cornerstone of any successful database. allowing you to run AlloyDB Omni in most
Kubernetes environments.
With our downloadable edition of AlloyDB, called
AlloyDB Omni, you can run your database in the AlloyDB Omni also offers a shortcut for
middle of the Mojave desert… if that’s what your modernizing legacy databases, anywhere. At a
business needs. This isn’t a scaled-back version fraction of the cost, it can be used for getting
either. It’s powered by the same engine that drives older databases up to an enterprise-grade version
the cloud-based AlloyDB service — so it offers of PostgreSQL supported by a Tier 1 vendor. This
all of the same functionality. And because it runs means goodbye to the expensive fees, unfriendly
anywhere, you can easily build apps in virtually any licensing relationships, and vendor lock-in
environment whether in the cloud or on-premises. associated with legacy database vendors.
The possibilities are endless!

Developer insight
“Knowing that I can host my cloud database on-
premises, keeping the data within the boundaries
of my on-prem environment was game changing!”

AlloyDB AI on AlloyDB Omni’s

indexing and embedding query
Can you
capabilities streamlines medical download your
analysis, eliminating the need for cloud database
external processing among millions
of patient records.
and run it
anywhere in
the world?
SHARANYA DESAI
PH.D, NEUROPACE

Source: Google Internal Data, March 2024 6

03_Stronger

AlloyDB detects
and recovers
from system
failures in 60
seconds or less.
TL;DR

A fully managed database with

99.99% availability SLA, an architecture
built for resilience, and auto-pilot
features that offer higher reliability
as well as ease of use, meaning your
work is safe with us.

pg_dump
> pg_dump: Command not required,
AlloyDB does all backups automatically.

Source: Google Internal Data, March 2024 7

03_Stronger
Starting to feel more Does your backup have
DevOps than Dev? your back?

As part of our vision for a truly developer-friendly With point-in-time recovery to any point within
database, we knew AlloyDB had to be fully and your defined retention window, you can restore
intelligently managed, as well as offering near- an AlloyDB database to a specific date and time
perfect uptime. We also ensured AlloyDB offers for development, test and auditing purposes, or
refreshingly predictable performance and a high recover your production database from user* or
availability service-level agreement (SLA) of application** errors.
99.99%, inclusive of maintenance.
*It does happen.
To make all this happen, AlloyDB uses adaptive, **It happens (not to you, of course).
intelligent algorithms to do the work that humans
hate to do. PostgreSQL vacuum management? In addition, AlloyDB can create and store complete
Storage and memory management? Data tiering? backups of your data, either on demand or on
Analytics acceleration? Consider it done. Oh, and a regular schedule. And for disaster recovery,
if you happen to hate query optimization, check it offers cross-region replication — AlloyDB will
out the Index Advisor, which monitors queries stream data from your primary region to one or
and recommends indexes that can be added to more secondary Google Cloud regions, and you
increase performance. can promote a database in a secondary region if
disaster strikes.
We know how every minute matters when you’re
building the future — or even just trying to get As for the business gain? Well, you can hardly put a
home on time. Which is why AlloyDB detects and price on protecting months, or even years, of work.
recovers from most system failures within 60
seconds and offers a high SLA of 99.99%, inclusive Developer insight
of maintenance. That’s your stress-free coffee break “This sounds a bit extra, but not having to worry
secured. And if you’re trying to scale, you really about my backup scheduler running properly helps
can’t afford to lose time to slowdowns and outages. me sleep at night.”

We came to appreciate the ease Hours spent

of maintenance that a fully managed
solution like AlloyDB provides. In a managing your
startup like ours, resources are limited, database?
so the ease of use and integration plus
the lack of infrastructure requirements
allow for a much better overall result. Or time to
Now, B4A developers can handle actually develop
almost everything without support
from the operations team. your apps?
JAN RIEHLE
CEO AND FOUNDER, B4A

Source: Google Internal Data, March 2024 8

04_Smarter
AlloyDB AI offers up
to 4x faster vector
queries, 8x faster index
creation, and uses 3-4x
less memory than the
HNSW index in standard
PostgreSQL.

TL;DR

AlloyDB is both the best database

for building generative AI applications
and is equipped with its own
impressive AI capabilities.

-- create embeddings in AlloyDB from our

existing Postgres chat history table
CREATE TABLE alloydb.embeddings AS
SELECT embedding(‘textembedding-gecko-
multilingual@001’, message), message
FROM postgres.chat_history

Source: Google Internal Data, March 2024 9

04_Smarter
Wish you were already What could Gemini do
building the next big for you?
gen AI app?
Are your customers suddenly all about gen AI? Or is it Part of a new generation of AI foundation models,
finally your turn to get rich quick? (No judgment here). Gemini gives you a way to supercharge your ideas
AlloyDB is not only the best database for building gen and completely change the way you work.
AI apps, it’s also powered by our own smart AI.
If you’ve found yourself bored, chipping away at
Through AlloyDB AI, which is an integral part of the the same repetitive SQL coding tasks or trying to
database, you get vector search from a company decipher database performance dashboards, you
that knows a thing or two about search. Our new should give Gemini a try. It supports our vision for
pgvector-compatible index is based on Google’s a database that lets you build without limits — just
state-of-the-art approximate nearest neighbor imagine what you could do with those repetitive
algorithms, the ScaNN index. AlloyDB AI offers up day-to-day frustrations taken care of.
to 4x faster vector queries, up to 8x faster index
creation, and typically uses 3-4x less memory than Here are just a few of the Gemini-assisted
the HNSW index in standard PostgreSQL. capabilities tools we offer through AlloyDB:

AlloyDB AI offers a suite of tools for easily building • Database Studio offers AI-assisted
enterprise gen AI apps, while also addressing some capabilities to easily generate SQL code using
of the memory, indexing speed, and querying natural language. Intelligent code assistance
performance requirements encountered in and code completion are available directly
demanding real-world use cases. You can also within the Google Cloud console.
generate embeddings from within your database, • Database Center simplifies all aspects of
and we fully integrate with Vertex AI and the database operations including performance
LangChain open source framework. optimization, fleet management, and
governance. It offers insights into database
Developer insight performance, security, reliability, and cost.
“Being able to use my existing database structure for • Database Migration Service offers code
a new AI project is an absolute game changer for me.” assistance and schema conversion, in preview.
It revolutionizes database migrations with LLM-
powered conversion for the last mile of migration.

AlloyDB AI acts as a dynamic vector

store, indexing repositories of regulatory
Will you stand
guidelines, compliance documents, on the sidelines?
and historical reporting data to ground
the chatbot. Compliance analysts and Or take
reporting specialists interact with the
chatbot in a conversational manner,
advantage
saving time and addressing diverse of AlloyDB’s
regulatory reporting questions. innovation?
ANTOINE MOREAU
CIO, REGNOLOGY

Source: Google Internal Data, March 2024 10

Cheat sheet

Need something
to show your
organization?
Here’s the
cheat sheet.

Better performance and scale for PostgreSQL workloads.

Better price-performance than standard PostgreSQL.

Super easy management.

Easy development of generative AI and semantic

search applications.

Runs anywhere — in any cloud, in your data center, even on

your laptop.

Backed by a Tier 1 cloud provider.

Provides fast, real-time business insights with no impact on

operational database performance.

Embedded Gemini assistive capabilities to support app

development, database administration, and migration.

11
/So, does your
existing database
stack up?

Now you’ve seen what AlloyDB can

do, and more importantly, what you
could do with AlloyDB, you might
have a few questions.

For expert advice from a member of the Cloud team,

contact us.

Or, try AlloyDB for free today: goo.gle/try_alloydb

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