How Tradeshift bosted operational efficiency and scalability with Amazon RDS

This article describes how Tradeshift migrated an 18TB PostgreSQL database from self-managed EC2 instances to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL in 2023, addressing operational challenges and improving scalability.

• Self-managed EC2 setup had 48-hour RTO, manual recovery, and 90%+ storage capacity usage
• Patching required 20+ minutes downtime; OS upgrades needed replica promotion workflows
• Amazon RDS provided automated failover, PITR, and simplified patching for audit compliance
• Used native PostgreSQL logical replication spread over two weeks to minimize performance impact
• Migration reduced RTO to minutes, improved observability with Performance Insights dashboard
• IAM authentication replaced manual credentials; pg_cron handles maintenance tasks internally
• Deprecated legacy Consul service discovery; Kubernetes-native names now provide connectivity
• Results: faster recovery, improved resilience, simplified developer onboarding, platform standardization

The migration eliminated technical debt, improved compliance, and reduced operational overhead while maintaining reliability and performance for a critical backend service.