PostgreSQL and MySQL - Concepts

Allowed IPs

Access Control List (ACL) rules define permissions for remote access to an Instance. A rule consists of an IP address or an IP range. You can use them to define which host and networks can connect to your Database Instance’s endpoint. You can add, edit, or delete rules from your ACLs. The initial setup of a Database Instance allows full network access from anywhere (0.0.0.0/0).

Access control is handled directly at network-level by Load Balancers, making the filtering more efficient, universal and relieving the Database Instance from this task.

Advanced settings

Database Instances have settings that allow you to tune the behavior of their database engine to better fit your needs. Available settings depend on the database engine and its version. Each Database Instance setting entry has a default value that the user can override. The deletion of a setting entry restores the setting to the entry’s default value. Some default values can be different from the engine’s default, as their configuration is optimized to work at full potential with the Scaleway ecosystem.

Block Storage Legacy

Block Storage Legacy is a volume type that is decoupled from your compute resources. You can increase your storage space to up to 10 TB without changing your node type.

Block Storage Low Latency

Block Storage Low Latency is a storage type similar to Block Storage Legacy that provides lower latency and high resiliency through 5k IOPS. You can increase your volume size to up to 10 TB.

Refer to the Block Storage Low Latency documentation section to learn more about this volume type.

Note

Block Low Latency volumes are only available with new-generation node types and in the PAR and AMS regions.

Clone feature

Clone is a feature that allows you to create a full copy of your Database Instance, including users and permissions, at a point in time. This new Instance is fully independent of its parent.

Database backup

A database backup is a complete dated export of a logical database stored on a backup backend. You can use the Managed Databases API to define if the backup should be stored in a region different from the database.

Database Instance

A Database Instance is a managed database service created upon a custom base image, that incorporates different features such as high-availability, data replication, and automatic backups. Scaleway deploys and manages the custom image, allowing you to focus on development rather than on the administration of your database infrastructure. Different PostgreSQL and MySQL engine versions are available for Database Instances.

Database snapshot

A snapshot is a consistent, instantaneous copy of the Block Storage volume of your Database Instance at a certain point in time. They are designed to recover your data in case of failure or accidental alterations of the data by a user. They allow you to quickly create a new Instance from a previous state of your database, regardless of the size of the volume. Their limitation is that, unlike backups, snapshots can only be stored in the same location as the original data.

Encryption at rest

Important

Once activated on a Database Instance, encryption at rest cannot be disabled.

Encryption at rest allows you to permanently encrypt your database data. The data is encrypted at volume level using LUKS. At Scaleway aes-xts-plain64 is used as the default. The management of the encryption key is done by Scaleway.

All databases, data (including logs), and snapshots will be encrypted. Logical backup encryption is not currently available.

Note

Encryption at rest can be activated after Database Instance creation via the upgrade endpoint.

Enabling encryption means your database data will be copied into a new, encrypted block volume. This takes approximately 1 hour per 100 GB of storage. When switching volumes, expect a few seconds of downtime towards the end of the copying process.

Endpoint

A point of connection to a database. The endpoint is associated with an IPv4 address and a port, and contains the information of whether the endpoint is read-write or not.

Engine

A database engine is the software component that stores and retrieves your data from a database. Currently, PostgreSQL versions 9.6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 are available. MySQL is available in version 8.

High availability

Is a Database Instance configuration that allows you to create a standby node, with an up-to-date replica of the database. If the main node fails for any reason, the standby can take over requests, reducing downtime.

The HA standby node is linked to the main node, using synchronous replication. Synchronous replication offers the ability to confirm that all changes intended by a transaction have been transferred and applied to the synchronous replica node, providing durability to the data.

Important

You can upgrade a standalone node to High Availability after Database Instance creation, but not the opposite.

Note

HA standby nodes are not accessible to users unless the main node becomes unavailable and the standby takes over. If you wish to run queries on a read-only node, you can use Read Replicas.

Local Storage

With this type, your storage is fixed and tied to your compute resource.

Note

Local Storage is only available with first-generation node types.

Logs

Logs can contain useful information for debugging or to know more about the behavior and activity of your databases.

Managed Database

Compared to traditional database management, which requires customers to provision their infrastructure and resources to manage their databases, managed databases offer the user access to a Database Instance without setting up the hardware or configuring the software.

Read Replica

A Read Replica is a live copy of a Database Instance that behaves like an Instance, but that only allows read-only connections. The replica mirrors the data of the primary Database node and any changes made are synchronized and reflected in the replica.

Region and Availability Zone

A region is a geographical area, such as France (Paris: fr-par) or the Netherlands (Amsterdam: nl-ams), in which Scaleway products and resources are located. It can contain multiple Availability Zones.

An Availability Zone refers to the geographical location within a region, such as waw-1 (Warsaw, Poland), in which your Scaleway resource will be created. The latency between multiple AZs of the same region is low, as they have a common network layer.

For an extensive list of which regions and AZ a resource is available in, refer to our Product availability guide.

Relational database

A database type that uses the relational model, which means that it stores and provides access to interrelated data points within the same database. Relational databases provide an intuitive, straightforward way of representing data in tables.

Volume type

This is the type of storage used on your Database Instances. Three types are available: Local Storage, Block Storage Legacy, and Block Storage Low Latency.

Note

Block Low Latency volumes are only available with new-generation node types and only in the PAR and AMS regions.

You can select the volume type upon Database Instance creation, and you can change the type anytime.