Microsoft’s Azure Horizondb Takes On Aurora, Alloydb

Microsoft announced its Azure HorizonDB for PostgreSQL successful preview astatine nan company’s Ignite conference this week.

With this caller offering, Microsoft is joining nan section of unreality native, managed Postgres services pinch a level designed to compete straight pinch Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and Google AlloyDB.

The preview merchandise makes Microsoft a superior PostgreSQL vendor, wherever nan unfastened root database has become, arsenic Andrew Brust, CEO of Blue Badge Insights and Microsoft MVP, put it, “the vanilla crystal pick of databases: everybody wants some, and everyone takes its readiness for granted.”

“We are amplifying Postgres goodness pinch unreality autochthonal architecture, starring connected AI, capacity and developers,” Shireesh Thota, firm vice president for Azure databases astatine Microsoft, told The New Stack successful an interview.

Disaggregated Architecture Drives Performance

Azure HorizonDB’s halfway invention lies successful its disaggregated architecture, which separates compute from retention — a departure from accepted PostgreSQL’s tightly coupled design, Thota said.

“With HorizonDB, we disaggregated. We move nan compute extracurricular of nan retention truthful your compute tin turn independently. Your retention tin turn independently,” he noted. “You don’t person to interest astir expanding some of them together and decreasing some together.”

With this architectural approach, nan work tin standard to 3,072 vCores crossed superior and replica nodes, pinch autoscaling shared retention supporting databases up to 128TB, nan institution said. Microsoft besides claims sub-millisecond multizone perpetrate latencies and up to 3 times much throughput compared pinch unfastened root Postgres for transactional workloads.

The shared retention architecture besides allows unlimited publication replicas since information is not coupled to nan superior node.

“If personification has a workload that has a batch of sounds coming in, you tin support adding publication replicas because nan information is moved distant from nan superior node, it’s shared across,” Thota said.

Vector Indexing for AI Workloads

Microsoft is betting heavy connected AI usage cases, introducing precocious filtering capabilities for DiskANN vector indexing that alteration query predicate pushdowns straight into vector similarity searches.

“We person a batch of precocious industry-leading vector indexing capabilities wrong HorizonDB that makes it very easy for you to constitute semantic hunt and nan next-generation intelligent applications,” Thota said.

The work besides includes built-in AI exemplary guidance that integrates generative, embedding and reranking models from Azure AI Foundry pinch zero configuration — addressing what Microsoft sees arsenic a spread successful really databases support Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) patterns.

Thota provided nan illustration of worker benefits queries: “If an worker wants to spell and inquire nan mobility astir a circumstantial wellness point aliases a use question, LLMs [large connection models] successful ChatGPT aliases immoderate LLM of your prime wouldn’t beryllium capable to entree that because nan information is locked successful a database. But we tin partner pinch LLM and a database if nan database has immoderate of nan smarts.”

Alpha Life Sciences, an existing Azure Database for PostgreSQL customer, is already readying to build connected Azure HorizonDB, Thota said.

“Its seamless support for Vector DB, RAG, and Agentic AI allows america to build intelligent features straight connected a reliable Postgres foundation. With Azure HorizonDB, I tin attraction connected advancing AI capabilities alternatively of managing infrastructure complexities,” said Pengcheng Xu, CTO of Alpha Life Sciences, successful a statement.

Developer Tooling arsenic Differentiator

Beyond nan database motor itself, Microsoft is enhancing nan developer acquisition done its PostgreSQL Extension for VS Code, which became mostly disposable on pinch nan HorizonDB preview, Thota said.

The hold has already garnered astir 250,000 downloads since its preview merchandise months ago, he added. It integrates GitHub Copilot pinch nan discourse consciousness of nan PostgreSQL database and adds unrecorded monitoring pinch one-click debugging, wherever Agent mode tin motorboat straight from capacity dashboards, he said.

“The tooling is not that awesome for Postgres, truthful Microsoft has contributed massively into this by creating a VS Code extension,” Thota said.

The hold besides includes a preview of GitHub Copilot-powered Oracle migration capabilities, enabling users to automate end-to-end conversion of analyzable database codification wrong VS Code’s integrated improvement environment.

Brad Shimmin, an expert astatine The Futurum Group, said he sees this developer ecosystem integration arsenic Microsoft’s cardinal advantage.

“The marketplace is already flooded pinch managed Postgres options, truthful basal capabilities aren’t capable to move galore heads,” Shimmin told The New Stack. “Microsoft’s existent differentiator present is its developer ecosystem. By integrating this database pinch devices for illustration Visual Studio and GitHub Copilot, they aren’t conscionable trading a database; they are trading a seamless, AI-assisted level upon which to build apps.”

Enterprise Features and Security

Azure HorizonDB includes enterprise-grade information features from launch, including autochthonal Entra ID authentication, Private Endpoints and information encryption. All information is replicated crossed readiness zones by default, pinch automated backups and Azure Defender for unreality integration, Thota said.

“A awesome illustration is Microsoft has a very beardown authentication system successful Entra, and truthful we brought nan Entra authentication to Postgres, which wasn’t existing earlier, truthful you really person a robust information mechanism,” Thota said.

Microsoft’s PostgreSQL Commitment

Meanwhile, Thota said Microsoft is simply a awesome contributor to nan unfastened root PostgreSQL project, pinch astir 20 PostgreSQL task contributors employed by nan company.

“We are 1 of nan biggest contributors into nan Postgres root code,” he said. “We’ve contributed, successful fact, bigger than astir of nan hyperscale title successful position of getting there.”

The institution contributes motor innovations for illustration Async I/O backmost to nan upstream project.

“We want to make judge that this merchandise really thrives. It’s not conscionable us; anybody who uses Postgres anyplace should get those benefits, and we are committed to doing that,” Thota added.

Microsoft’s squad is already moving connected contributions to PostgreSQL 19, scheduled for merchandise adjacent year.

Competitive Landscape

As mentioned, nan caller offering puts Microsoft successful nonstop title pinch Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and Google AlloyDB successful nan unreality autochthonal managed PostgreSQL space.

“While Azure had its much pedestrian Azure Database for PostgreSQL and its specialized Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL, it lacked a big, distributed, all-you-can-eat, vanilla Postgres,” Brust said. “Now that spread is filled and equilibrium is established. Aurora PostgreSQL and AlloyDB, move over. This chair seats three.”

Meanwhile, Shimmin noted that Azure HorizonDB for PostgreSQL serves aggregate strategical purposes for Microsoft.

“It shores up Microsoft Fabric pinch a coagulated operational furniture and gives nan institution a nice, unreality autochthonal reply to different relational databases for illustration Google AlloyDB,” he said. “It’s a smart improvement beyond conscionable SQL Server, specifically engineered to grip nan progressively demanding vector indexing needs of today’s AI and agentic AI workloads.”

Azure HorizonDB is initially disposable successful Central US, West US3, UK South, and Australia East regions. Customers tin use for early preview entree astatine aka.ms/PreviewHorizonDB, though information is limited.

The work complements Microsoft’s existing Azure Database for PostgreSQL elastic server, providing what Thota described arsenic options for customers “who want 100% Postgres” versus those who “want to standard it and make it unreality native.”

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