A set of properties that guarantee database transactions are processed reliably: Atomicity (all operations succeed or fail together), Consistency (data integrity is maintained), Isolation (concurrent transactions don't interfere), and Durability (committed changes persist).
Example: PostgreSQL ensures ACID compliance, making it suitable for financial applications where data integrity is critical.
The property that ensures all operations within a transaction are completed successfully, or none are applied at all.
Example: If transferring money between accounts fails halfway through, atomicity ensures no partial changes are saved.
A deployment model where software runs on the customer's own cloud infrastructure rather than the vendor's managed service.
Example: Vela's BYOC approach lets you deploy on AWS, GCP, Azure, or on-premises while maintaining full control.
A tree data structure that maintains sorted data and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time.
Example: PostgreSQL uses B-tree indexes by default for most column types to speed up WHERE clause queries.
A resource management technique where data is shared until one process needs to modify it, then a copy is created.
Example: Vela's copy-on-write cloning allows instant database copies that only use additional storage when data diverges.
A technique to maintain a cache of database connections that can be reused across multiple requests.
Example: PgBouncer provides connection pooling to reduce the overhead of establishing new PostgreSQL connections.
A point in the WAL where all dirty data pages have been written to disk, providing a consistent recovery point.
Example: PostgreSQL automatically performs checkpoints to ensure data durability and limit recovery time.
A version control approach for databases that allows creating isolated copies for development, similar to Git branches.
Example: Vela enables database branching so developers can work on features with real production data without affecting the main database.
The ACID property ensuring that once a transaction is committed, it remains so even in the event of system failure.
Example: PostgreSQL's WAL (Write-Ahead Logging) ensures durability by persisting all changes before acknowledging commits.
A PostgreSQL command that shows the execution plan of a query along with actual runtime statistics.
Example: EXPLAIN ANALYZE SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = 'user at example.com' shows index usage and execution time.
A constraint that establishes a link between data in two tables by referencing the primary key of another table.
Example: A user_id foreign key in an orders table ensures every order belongs to a valid user in the users table.
A technique for searching text data that goes beyond simple pattern matching to include linguistic analysis.
Example: PostgreSQL's full-text search can find documents containing "running" when searching for "run" using stemming.
Generalized Inverted Index - an index type in PostgreSQL optimized for indexing composite values like arrays and full-text search.
Example: CREATE INDEX idx_tags ON posts USING GIN(tags) speeds up queries on array columns.
A standby server that can accept read-only queries while continuously applying WAL records from the primary.
Example: PostgreSQL hot standby allows read replicas to serve read traffic while staying synchronized with the primary.
An approach that enables real-time analytics on transactional data without separate ETL processes.
Example: Vela's HTAP capabilities allow running OLAP queries directly on live OLTP data without data movement.
A data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database table.
Example: CREATE INDEX idx_user_email ON users(email) speeds up login queries that search by email address.
The ACID property that ensures concurrent transactions don't interfere with each other.
Example: PostgreSQL's MVCC provides isolation by showing each transaction a consistent snapshot of the database.
PostgreSQL data types for storing JSON documents. JSONB is a binary format that supports indexing and efficient operations.
Example: JSONB columns allow storing flexible document data while maintaining the benefits of relational constraints.
A mechanism to control concurrent access to database resources to maintain data consistency.
Example: PostgreSQL uses various lock types to ensure that UPDATE operations don't conflict with each other.
A method of replicating data changes based on their logical representation rather than physical storage.
Example: Logical replication allows selective replication of specific tables or schemas to different PostgreSQL versions.
A technique that allows multiple transactions to access the same data simultaneously without blocking.
Example: PostgreSQL's MVCC lets readers and writers operate concurrently without locks by maintaining multiple data versions.
A database object that contains the result of a query and is physically stored, unlike a regular view.
Example: A materialized view can cache complex aggregations for faster reporting queries that don't need real-time data.
A category of database processing that facilitates complex analytical queries over large datasets.
Example: Vela's OLAP capabilities enable real-time business intelligence directly on operational PostgreSQL data.
A category of database processing that manages transaction-oriented applications with high concurrency.
Example: E-commerce order processing is a typical OLTP workload requiring fast, consistent transactions.
PostgreSQL's built-in benchmarking tool for running performance tests with simulated workloads.
Example: pgbench -c 10 -j 2 -T 60 mydb runs a 60-second benchmark with 10 clients and 2 worker threads.
A constraint that uniquely identifies each row in a table and cannot contain NULL values.
Example: An auto-incrementing id column is commonly used as a primary key to ensure each record is unique.
A technique to split large tables into smaller, more manageable pieces based on specific criteria.
Example: Range partitioning by date allows efficient querying and maintenance of large time-series tables.
The component of PostgreSQL that determines the most efficient way to execute a given SQL query.
Example: The query planner chooses between index scans and sequential scans based on table statistics and query conditions.
The process of copying and maintaining database objects in multiple database environments.
Example: Streaming replication keeps standby servers synchronized with the primary for high availability.
The ability to analyze data and provide insights immediately as data is created or updated.
Example: Vela enables real-time analytics on live transactional data without traditional ETL delays.
A standardized language for managing and manipulating relational databases.
Example: SELECT name FROM users WHERE created_at > '2023-01-01' retrieves users created this year.
An open-source backend platform that provides PostgreSQL database, authentication, and real-time subscriptions.
Example: Vela builds on the Supabase ecosystem, extending it with enterprise features and performance optimizations.
A key performance metric measuring the number of database transactions completed per second.
Example: Vela achieves 290,000 TPS for read workloads, significantly outperforming traditional cloud databases.
A sequence of database operations that are executed as a single logical unit of work.
Example: BEGIN; UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance - 100 WHERE id = 1; UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance + 100 WHERE id = 2; COMMIT;
Data organized by time order, typically used for metrics, logs, and sensor data.
Example: PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB extension efficiently handles time-series data for IoT applications.
A single database system that can handle multiple workload types (OLTP, OLAP, search, etc.) efficiently.
Example: Vela's unified approach eliminates the need for separate systems for transactional and analytical workloads.
An operation that inserts a new row or updates an existing row if a conflict occurs.
Example: INSERT INTO users (id, name) VALUES (1, 'John') ON CONFLICT (id) DO UPDATE SET name = EXCLUDED.name;
A PostgreSQL maintenance operation that reclaims storage and updates statistics for optimal performance.
Example: VACUUM ANALYZE users; reclaims space from deleted rows and updates table statistics for the query planner.
A search technique that finds similar items based on vector embeddings, commonly used for AI applications.
Example: PostgreSQL with pgvector extension enables semantic search and recommendation systems using vector similarity.
A high-performance PostgreSQL platform with instant cloning, Git-like branching, and unified OLTP/OLAP capabilities.
Example: Vela provides 6x better performance than AWS RDS while offering modern development workflows developers love.
A logging mechanism where changes are written to a log before being applied to the database files.
Example: WAL ensures data durability and enables point-in-time recovery and streaming replication in PostgreSQL.
A SQL clause used to filter records based on specified conditions.
Example: SELECT * FROM products WHERE price > 100 AND category = 'electronics' filters products by price and category.
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