Install Managed Service for TimescaleDB

To serve TimescaleDB deployments in Azure, GCP, and certain regions in AWS, we’ve partnered with the vendor Aiven to offer Managed Service for TimescaleDB. This is a managed database platform through which you’ll be able to deploy TimescaleDB instances with ease, automating operational tasks like scaling, resizing, configuring high availability, and much more.

Timescale Cloud or Managed Service for TimescaleDB?

If your workload lives in the AWS major regions, we recommend using Timescale Cloud. This platform is built and exclusively operated by Timescale, designed to offer maximum cost-effectiveness and performance for time-series data. If you need Azure, GCP, or a specific AWS region not available in Timescale Cloud, Managed Service for TimescaleDB is the best choice for you.

Installing Managed Service for TimescaleDB

1. Sign up for a Managed Service for TimescaleDB account with your name and email address. You do not need to provide payment details to get started. A confirmation email is sent to the email address you provide.
2. Verify your email by clicking on the link in the email you received. Don’t forget to check your spam folder in case the email ends up there.

3. Sign in to the Managed Service for TimescaleDB portal with the password you set:

   

important

Your Managed Service for TimescaleDB trial includes up to US$300 credit for you to use. This is enough to complete all our tutorials and run a few test projects of your own.

Create your first service

A service in Managed Service for TimescaleDB is a cloud instance on your chosen cloud provider, which you can install your database on.

Creating your first service

1. Sign in to the Managed Service for TimescaleDB portal.

2. Click Create a new service, and complete these details:

   • In the Select Your Service field, click TimescaleDB.
   • In the Select Your Cloud Service Provider field, click your preferred provider.
   • In the Select Your Cloud Service Region field, click your preferred server location. This is often the server that’s physically closest to you.
   • In the Select Your Service Plan field, click your preferred plan, based on the hardware configuration you require. If you are in your trial period, and just want to try the service out, or develop a proof of concept, we recommend the Dev plan, because it is the most cost-effective during your trial period.

3. In the information bar on the right of the screen, review the settings you have selected for your service, and click Create Service. The service takes a few minutes to provision.

   

important

Your Managed Service for TimescaleDB trial includes up to US$300 credit for you to use. This is enough to complete all our tutorials and run a few test projects of your own.

Connect to your service from the command prompt

When you have a service up and running, you can connect to it from your local system using the psql command-line utility. This is the same tool you might have used to connect to PostgreSQL before, but if you haven’t installed it yet, check out our installing psql section.

Connecting to your service from the command prompt

1. Sign in to the Managed Service for TimescaleDB portal.

2. In the Services tab, find the service you want to connect to, and check it is marked as Running.

3. Click the name of the service you want to connect to see the connection information. Take a note of the host, port, and password.

4. On your local system, at the command prompt, connect to the service, using your own service details:

   psql -x "postgres://tsdbadmin:<PASSWORD>@<HOSTNAME>:<PORT>/defaultdb?sslmode=require"

   If your connection is successful, you’ll see a message like this, followed by the psql prompt:

   psql (13.3, server 13.4)
   SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, bits: 256, compression: off)
   Type "help" for help.
   defaultdb=>

Check that you have the TimescaleDB extension

TimescaleDB is provided as an extension to your PostgreSQL database, and it is enabled by default when you create a new service on Managed Service for TimescaleDB. You can check that the TimescaleDB extension is installed by using the \dx command at the psql prompt. It looks like this:

defaultdb=> \dx
List of installed extensions
-[ RECORD 1 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
Name        | plpgsql
Version     | 1.0
Schema      | pg_catalog
Description | PL/pgSQL procedural language
-[ RECORD 2 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
Name        | timescaledb
Version     | 2.5.1
Schema      | public
Description | Enables scalable inserts and complex queries for time-series data
defaultdb=>

Where to next

Now that you have your first service up and running, you can check out the Managed Service for TimescaleDB section in our documentation, and find out what you can do with it.

If you want to work through some tutorials to help you get up and running with TimescaleDB and time-series data, check out our tutorials section.

You can always contact us if you need help working something out, or if you want to have a chat.