Get started with Managed Service for TimescaleDB

Managed Service for TimescaleDB is a managed database-as-a-service product for accessing hosted TimescaleDB in Azure or Google Cloud Platform. Managed Service for TimescaleDB is offered in partnership with Timescale and Aiven.

Timescale or Managed Service for TimescaleDB?

If your workload lives in AWS, use Timescale. Built and exclusively operated by Timescale, Timescale is a PostgreSQL data platform for time-series, events and analytics.

If you need Azure or GCP, contact Timescale support about Managed Service for TimescaleDB instead.

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

Sign in to your Managed Service for TimescaleDB portal.
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.
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.

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 the installing psql section.

Connecting to your service from the command prompt

Sign in to your Managed Service for TimescaleDB portal.
In the Services tab, find the service you want to connect to, and check it is marked as Running.
Click the name of the service you want to connect to see the connection information. Take a note of the host, port, and password.

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 the 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 the tutorials section.

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