Database Technology

Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition now supports minor versions 18.6, 17.11, 16.15, 15.19, and 14.24. These updates include community bug fixes, Aurora-specific enhancements, and critical CVE patches. AWS recommends upgrading during scheduled maintenance windows to address security vulnerabilities and improve stability.

• Upgrade to latest minors to patch CVEs and gain bug fixes.
• Use automatic minor version upgrades for seamless maintenance.
• Orchestrate phased rollouts via AWS Organizations policies.
• Validate changes in non-production before critical systems.

Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL has released specific minor versions under its Extended Support program for major releases 11, 12, and 13. These updates provide up to three additional years of critical security and bug fixes beyond the standard support lifecycle end dates. The release aims to give users more time to plan and execute migrations to newer major versions.

• Extended Support versions 13.23, 12.22, and 11.22 are now available in RDS.
• Coverage extends up to three years past standard support for critical CVEs and bugs.
• Use Blue/Green Deployments, in-place upgrades, or snapshot restores to apply updates.
• Leverage this window to plan migrations away from older major PostgreSQL versions.

Amazon ElastiCache Serverless for Valkey now exposes public endpoints, enabling direct internet access from external environments like laptops or serverless functions without requiring a VPC, VPN, or bastion host. Connections are secured via IAM authentication over TLS 1.3, eliminating the need for password management. This feature supports rapid prototyping and connects AI agents or workloads that cannot reside within an AWS VPC.

• Connect Valkey Serverless directly from outside AWS without VPC or tunneling overhead.
• Use IAM auth over TLS 1.3 for secure, password-free connections.
• Ideal for external AI agents, coding tools, and rapid prototyping.
• Requires Valkey GLIDE 2.2+ or a client with built-in IAM support.

Percona analysis shows Valkey 9.1 reduces RAM usage by 37.5% compared to version 7.2 in key-string heavy environments. This optimization is particularly relevant for caching, session management, and real-time applications like e-commerce and gaming. The significant memory savings stem from specific encoding improvements introduced in recent releases.

• Valkey 9.1 delivers 37.5% memory reduction vs 7.2 for key-string workloads
• Optimizations target high-volume caching, sessions, and real-time app scenarios
• Gaming, e-commerce, and ad tech fleets stand to gain from lower RAM costs
• Memory savings are driven by deeper encoding optimizations in newer versions

Devrim Gündüz has added Rust-based extensions, specifically pgrx and postgresql_anonymizer, to the PostgreSQL RPM repository. This move introduces specific packaging guidelines and acknowledges current distribution limitations. Support for RHEL 10.3 and 9.9 is planned for November.

• Rust extensions pgrx and postgresql_anonymizer are now available in PGDG RPMs.
• Official packaging guidelines for Rust extensions are now published.
• Current support has known limitations across certain distributions.
• RHEL 10.3 and 9.9 compatibility is targeted for November release.

The Planet PostgreSQL dev team has redesigned the yum.postgresql.org and zypp.postgresql.org front pages to eliminate manual navigation. Users can now select their OS, version, architecture, and PostgreSQL release to generate ready-to-use installation instructions. A new copy-link feature allows for easy sharing and integration into automation scripts or blog posts.

• Front page now generates copy-paste ready repo setup commands instantly.
• Supports customization and sharing of specific repo links for automation.
• Simplifies access to extra and non-free package repositories.
• Reduces friction for DBAs managing RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux fleets.