Microsoft Corp. looks to have made a useful acquisition today with Citus Data Inc., which builds products designed to make the PostgreSQL database faster and more scalable.

PostgreSQL is an open-source relational database that comes with useful features such as custom functions for programming languages such as C/C++ and Java. It’s also designed to be more extensible than other SQL databases, providing users with the ability to define data types, index types and functional languages.

Citus Data has built an open-source PostgreSQL extension that can be used to transform applications into a more scalable and distributed database. It helps to overcome some of the limitations of traditional SQL databases, and it’s said that tools such as this one are the reason why relational databases are still a growing market.

The company’s PostgreSQL software is currently available only on Amazon Web Services Inc.’s public cloud, but the acquisition will inevitably change that. Rohan Kumar, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Azure Data, said in a blog post that the company will work with Citus Data’s team to “accelerate the delivery of key, enterprise-ready features from Azure to PostgreSQL and enable critical PostgreSQL workloads to run on Azure with confidence.”

Citus Data’s cofounders (pictured alongside Microsoft executives) added that as part of Microsoft, “we will stay focused on building an amazing database on top of PostgreSQL that gives our users the game-changing scale, performance and resilience they need.”

What with Microsoft already offering its own managed version of PostgreSQL on its Azure cloud, some might be wondering why the company would need to acquire Citus Data. The answer lies in the importance of SQL databases, and the fact that there are some key differences between the two firm’s offerings that may have tempted Microsoft to part with its cash.

The most important thing to consider is that transactional databases remain critical for enterprises that want to move workloads from on-premises systems to the public cloud, said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president at Constellation Research Inc. As a result, cloud infrastructure-as-a-service providers are looking to show “database diversity” as they want to give companies different options to power their next generation apps in the cloud, he said.

“Today it was Microsoft’s time to strike, and with Citus Data it deepens its capabilities on PostGreSQL, especially from a multitenancy and analytics speed perspective,” Mueller said. “And the underlying compatibility of PostGreSQL with on-premises relational database management service leader Oracle may play a role down the road.”

The acquisition, financial terms of which weren’t disclosed, could also help Microsoft to further its argument that it’s a key supporter of open-source software. This is critical for Microsoft, since its support of all things open can help the company to win business from cloud competitors such as AWS and Google LLC.

Photo: Microsoft/Citus Data