PostgreSQL 16 Backups & Support Matrix

[donkeymagic]

I think Veeam would benefit from a detailed support matrix for each product stating what has been tested and what is supported at the time of release. My reasoning for this is based around PostgreSQL backups within the AWS platform however this could extend to other products in the Veeam ecosystem.

As part of testing some of the features I created a PostgreSQL RDS instance in AWS and created a new policy, this was specified to both perform snapshots and also backup the database which does a more traditional backup of the solution using pgdump (this feature would also be appreciated for MySQL/MariaDB as the functionality is the same). Ultimately taking a backup of the database is better than keeping just the snapshots moving forwards for compliance allow the database to be kept for longer periods. When setting up the PostgreSQL database backups I was greeted with an error stating that the dump version available exited due to a mismatch in the dump and the live version because the dump program available to Veeam is 15.3 as its what is built into the Veeam AWS Appliance. It was quite obvious that the Veeam AWS appliance would never be able to backup PostgreSQL 16 without the dump version being increased, this took far too long backwards and forwards with Veeam support before they admitted that it will be fixed in a future release. If a support matrix was in place stating exactly what is and is not possible with Veeam at the time of release rather than the blanket statement of "Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL protection — add an additional layer to your PostgreSQL database protection on top of native snapshots by enabling archiving of backups to Amazon S3, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval or S3 Glacier Deep Archive, including optional immutability through Amazon S3 Object Lock." actually providing some detail as to what versions it has been tested with and what is possible would be better. Again I appreciate that a support matrix would be quite complex and detailed but it would highlight exactly what has been tested at the time of release and what is supported saving time and support cases.

As an additional note PostgreSQL 16 has been out since September 2023, while I appreciate its not possible to add support for everything instantly and it takes time including testing the feedback I got from Veeam support was that there was no such limitation in what I should be able to protect with PostgreSQL backups but that is not the case.

While this is being addressed at the moment without an ETA for the fix I was curious if a more straightforward support matrix rather than release notes would be more beneficial to state exactly what does and does not work with each release. If this is available I cannot find it for AWS Backups.

[nielsengelen]

Hi Oliver,

We'll look to enhance the user guide regarding this. Regarding support for PostgreSQL 16, I'll check internally on the state and report back.

[nielsengelen]

We're currently working on support for PostgreSQL 16 and it should become available with our upcoming release. I can't provide a direct date for it at the moment though as testing is ongoing.