Oct 14, 2021

OtterTune Oct 2021 product update: Bring da ruckus

OtterTune Team

otter ottertune october 2021 product update
otter ottertune october 2021 product update

We have been a busy raft of otters since the launch of the preview release of the OtterTune automatic database tuning service in May. Our primary focus since then has been to make it easier to get started with OtterTune and put it to work auto-tuning your databases. Here’s what’s new in this latest update.

Tune Your First Database for Free

We now allow people to get started using OtterTune by auto-tuning their first database for free. A new free Starter tier supports basic auto-tuning of the most common knobs for Amazon RDS PostgreSQL or MySQL (in any/all AWS availability zones as of October 21).

You can get started by creating your free OtterTune account and following the "Getting Started" documentation. Please refer to the OtterTune pricing information for auto-tuning more than one database or additional enterprise features.

Easier setup and connectivity

The OtterTune account creation and setup process has been automated to make it easier for you to get started on your own. New features include:

Fast setup with CloudFormation templates

OtterTune provides AWS CloudFormation templates that make it fast and easy to set up the AWS IAM role and the OtterTune agent (see below) needed to monitor and auto-tune your database. See the documentation for more details.

Monitor your database with OtterTune’s agent

OtterTune now provides a containerized metrics collection agent to make it easier for you to connect your AWS database with OtterTune. The new agent allows the OtterTune auto-tuning service to monitor and optimize your database without needing to provide us with inbound network access to your private network. It retrieves internal metrics from the database and AWS CloudWatch. The source code for OtterTune’s agent is available on GitHub.

Okta self-service registration

OtterTune now uses Okta to provide you with a seamless, secure authentication experience. The security and safety of your database is a top priority for us. This is why we do not need to look at your user tables or queries to figure out how to optimize your database.

New auto-tuning controls

Based on feedback from early OtterTune users, we’ve added features that give you more control over how and when OtterTune applies configuration changes to your databases:

Flexible optimization with tuning schedules

OtterTune’s Tuning Schedule allows you to specify time windows for when the service will attempt to optimize the database’s configuration. These schedules allow you to avoid potential performance degradation during an application’s peak usage. If you enable database restarts, then the Tuning Schedule also lets you specify when OtterTune is allowed to restart the database.

Apply configurations manually

OtterTune provides an “Apply Configuration” button that enables you to immediately override the current (active) configuration with one that was applied to the database previously.

Track your configurations with configuration versioning

OtterTune keeps track of each configuration that it installs on the database which allows you to view the knob settings for each configuration and the measured performance. You can also compare the differences between two configurations.

ottertune view configurations

User docs and an open support community on Slack

We published the first version of OtterTune user documentation, which details how to connect OtterTune to your database and start the machine learning (ML)-driven tuning process.

We also created an open support community on Slack. If you have questions about OtterTune, join us on Slack and ask us for help.

Try OtterTune for free. Start using AI to optimize your PostgreSQL or MySQL databases running on Amazon RDS or Aurora.

Try OtterTune for free. Start using AI to optimize your PostgreSQL or MySQL databases running on Amazon RDS or Aurora.

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