DigitalOcean Inc. today launched the first in a new series of managed database services that will challenge existing offerings from bigger rivals such as Amazon Web Services Inc.

The heavily-funded startup, which ranks as the third-largest cloud provider by the number of internet-facing instances it hosts, enjoys a particularly strong following among developers and startups. In recent quarters, DigitalOcean has been adding advanced capabilities aimed at appealing to larger organizations.

The new managed database offering launching today is the latest fruit of this strategy. It’s a cloud-based implementation of the open-source PostgreSQL system, the second most widely used relational database in the world behind MySQL.

DigitalOcean’s service promises to automate much of the work involved in operating a cloud-based PostgreSQL environment. It enables administrators to launch new instances in a few seconds and takes care of tasks such as applying security patches, which eases day-to-day maintenance. DigitalOcean has paired these features with a set of management tools for protecting deployments against outages.

According to the startup, PostgreSQL administrators can create standby databases to take the place of a production instance if there’s a technical issue. The failover mechanism is automated to minimize the amount of downtime for users. This capability is complemented by a likewise automated backup tool that periodically generates database copies to prevent information loss in the event of an outage.

Another area where DigitalOcean is looking to simplify administrators’ work is security. The PostgreSQL service encrypts records both at rest and in transit by default, while providing the ability to set custom rules for restricting inbound database requests. 

Organizations with more advanced requirements can link instances to their internal management tools. The service provides an application programming service for connecting with external systems and a ready-made integration with Terraform, a popular open-source infrastructure automation system.

DigitalOcean plans to add support for additional databases besides PostgreSQL over the course of the year. The startup will have to move fast if it wants to catch up with cloud leader AWS, which currently offers more than a half-dozen managed database services on its platform. Among them is a recently launched blockchain-based system geared towards financial applications.

Photo: DigitalOcean