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About aiven-db-migrate

The aiven-db-migrate tool is the recommended approach for migrating your PostgreSQL® to Aiven. It supports both logical replication and also using a dump and restore process. Find out more about the tool on GitHub.

Logical replication is the default method and once successfully set up, this keeps the two databases synchronized until the replication is interrupted. If the preconditions for logical replication are not met for a database, the migration falls back to using pg_dump.

Regardless of the migration method used, the migration tool first performs a schema dump and migration to ensure schema compatibility.

note

Logical replication also works when migrating from AWS RDS PostgreSQL® 10+ and Google CloudSQL PostgreSQL.

Migration requirements​

The following are the two basic requirements for a migration:

  1. The source server is publicly available or there is a virtual private cloud (VPC) peering connection between the private networks
  2. A user account with access to the destination cluster from an external IP, as configured in pg_hba.conf on the source cluster is present.

Additionally to perform a logical replication, the following need to be valid:

  1. PostgreSQL® version 10 or newer

  2. Credentials with superuser access to the source cluster or the aiven-extras extension installed (see also: Aiven Extras on GitHub)

    note

    The aiven_extras extension allows you to perform publish/subscribe-style logical replication without a superuser account, and it is preinstalled on Aiven for PostgreSQL servers.

    • An available replication slot on the destination cluster for each database migrated from the source cluster.
    • wal_level setting on the source cluster to logical.

Migration pre-checks​

The aiven-db-migrate migration tool checks the following requirements before it starts the actual migration:

  1. A connection can be established to both source and target servers
  2. The source and target server are not the same
  3. A connection can be established to all source databases, ignoring template0, template1, and admin databases
  4. There is enough disk space on the target for 130% of the total size of the source databases (ignoring template0, template1, and admin databases)
  5. There are at least as many free logical replication slots as there are databases to migrate
  6. A connection can be established to any target database that already exists on both source and target servers
  7. The target version is the same as or newer than the source version
  8. All languages installed in the source are available in the target
  9. All extensions in the source are installed or available in the target
  10. Source extensions not installed in the target can be installed:
    • by connecting as a superuser
    • without requiring superuser access
    • by inclusion in the allowed extensions list
    • by being a trusted extension (for PostgreSQL® 13 and newer)
  11. In addition, for using the logical replication method:
    • The source version is PostgreSQL 10 or newer
    • The source wal_level is set to logical
    • The user connecting to the source has superuser access or the aiven_extra extension is or can be installed on each database

Next steps​

There's a detailed guide for performing the migration: Migrate to Aiven for PostgreSQL® with aiven-db-migrate