Elephant Shed PostgreSQL appliance

Elephant in the Room

PostgreSQL is an extensible, object-oriented database that supports both SQL for relational and JSON for non-relational queries. Its extensive list of enterprise-class features makes it one of the most popular open source relational databases.

Running a database server successfully, however, requires more than just the database. Along with the PostgreSQL database, you also need tools to administer the data it houses and tools for the administration of the server itself. As any database administrator knows, that involves keeping an eye on the logs to look for inconsistencies and regularly checking the server statistics to weed out bottlenecks.

Elephant Shed [1] is an all-in-one appliance that combines several open source tools that a database administrator would need to run and manage a database server. Among other things, you can use it for fine-tuning, to monitor its vitals, and to design and execute a backup strategy. The appliance uses Prometheus [2] and Grafana [3] to collect and visualize all kinds of database metrics, pgBadger [4] to collect and analyze the log, pgBackRest [5] to define an effective backup strategy, pgAdmin4 [6] to administer the data housed within the server, and Cockpit [7] to take charge of the underlying server. In essence, Elephant Shed glues all these individual pieces together and makes them accessible through an intuitive browser-based interface.

Tame the Beast

Elephant Shed is released under the GPLv3 license and supports PostgreSQL versions 9.4 upward. You can install the tool

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