Get started with AlloyDB Omni on VMs

AlloyDB Omni is a downloadable database software package that lets you deploy a streamlined edition of AlloyDB for PostgreSQL in your own computing environment. You can run AlloyDB Omni in private data centers, on public clouds, and on developer laptops.

To get started with AlloyDB Omni, use the following guides, which provide detailed information about how to install and use AlloyDB Omni in virtual machine (VM) environments.

AlloyDB Omni doesn't include some AlloyDB for PostgreSQL features that rely on operation within Google Cloud. If you want to upgrade your project to the fully managed scaling, security, and availability features of AlloyDB for PostgreSQL, you can migrate your AlloyDB Omni data into an AlloyDB for PostgreSQL cluster like any other initial data import.

Use cases

AlloyDB Omni is well-suited to the following scenarios:

  • You need a scalable and performant version of PostgreSQL, but you can't run a database in the cloud due to regulatory or data sovereignty requirements.
  • You need a database that keeps running even when it's disconnected from the internet.
  • You want to physically locate your database as close as possible to your users, in order to minimize latency.
  • You want to migrate away from a legacy database without committing to a full cloud migration.
  • You have workloads that need to run in multiple public clouds, or in a hybrid cloud with private data centers and public clouds intermixed.

What it's good for

AlloyDB Omni includes many of the performance improvements in AlloyDB for PostgreSQL. AlloyDB Omni has more than twice the throughput of open source PostgreSQL on TPC-C-like tests with HammerDB, and it offers an improvement in response time by up to a hundred times for TPC-H-like analytical queries.

AlloyDB Omni also supports autopilot features from AlloyDB for PostgreSQL in Google Cloud, allowing it to self-update and self-tune. These autopilot features include automatic memory management, adaptive autovacuum, and index advisor. AlloyDB Omni also supports the columnar engine, which can accelerate analytical queries on large data sets by up to 100 times.