Open-source server specialist Percona is branching out yet again.
After establishing a reputation for MySQL server solutions, the Raleigh, N.C., technology firm released in 2015 its Percona Server for the popular open-source MongoDB database. The following year, it rolled the second version of its product for MongoDB 3.2. Today, the company is at it again with Percona Server for MongoDB 3.6.
On April 24, coinciding with the Percona Live Conference in Santa Clara, Calif. (April 23-25), the company announced the general availability of the solution featuring updates and enhancements found in MongoDB Community Edition 3.6.
Percona’s bet on MongoDB appears to have paid off. Two years ago, 30,000 users had downloaded Percona Server for MongoDB since its initial launch in the fall of 2015. Today, the company reported that the software had been downloaded 300,000 times.
New features include retryable writes, which allow data to be written to the database when network issues crop up, and causal consistency capabilities that provide reliable read operations on secondary nodes. Security gets an upgrade with updated access controls and improved network listening features.
Meanwhile, the company is also rolling out a new version of its MySQL server product, with three new features that help safeguard business data. Percona Server for MySQL 5.7.21 features encryption for InnoDB general tablespaces, binary log file encryption and a Vault keyring plug-in.
“One of the key challenges for enterprises is how to secure their data to meet compliance objectives. While encryption alone is useful, it is often very complex operationally to implement,” said Peter Zaitsev, co-founder and CEO of Percona. “The new features of Percona Server for MySQL not only provide a pathway for organizations to encrypt their data to meet ever tighter compliance requirements, but also provides a method to centrally manage the keys used to encrypt their databases using Hashicorp Vault.”
Percona DBA Service, a new database managed service, offers monitoring, reporting and security assessments, among other essentials, for both cloud-based and on-premises databases. Cloud support includes Amazon Aurora, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.
This summer, Percona is expanding its support services slate with another popular open-source database, PostgreSQL.
Providing support for PostreSQL, whose profile has been growing higher of late, is a natural next step for Percona. The database has attracted some big-name brands, including IMDB.com, Fujitsu and Etsy.com. “Because of its feature set, PostgreSQL is also a popular choice for enterprises that are looking to move away from proprietary databases such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or DB2 to reduce costs or decrease operational complexity,” Zaitsev explained.
Percona Support for PostgreSQL joins the company’s other support offerings for MySQL, MongoDB and MariaDB, allowing customers to consult with database experts via phone, email, chat and the web when it launches on July 1. As a bonus, customers running a mix of open-source databases in their environments will be able consolidate their enterprise support services to one vendor, Zaitsev added.
Finally, Percona announced two major new partnerships.
The company has teamed with Microsoft to make its software available in the Azure Marketplace, a move that helps simplify deployments in Azure instances, asserted Percona. In addition, the company formed an alliance with San Francisco-based Mesosphere to bring Percona Server for MongoDB to Mesosphere’s container-driven DC/OS (Data Center Operating System) platform.