High Availability and Operational Continuity Through Expert PostgreSQL Troubleshooting

Ensuring Uninterrupted Service: How Stormatics Resolved PostgreSQL Exceptions for a Leading Video Surveillance SaaS Provider

An innovative video surveillance SaaS company offering rapid review, real-time alerting, and detailed video analytics allows its users to efficiently search, identify, and understand thousands of objects and trends within video content, driving operational efficiency and informed decision-making for businesses and communities. Built for flexibility and scalability, the platform sets the standard for accuracy, performance, and user experience in the video analytics industry. However, maintaining seamless performance amidst an expanding user base and growing video data volumes required a stable and reliable database infrastructure.

The Challenge

The client’s PostgreSQL database began experiencing unpredictable exceptions, significantly disrupting the performance of their SaaS platform. This created a substantial operational risk, impacting the platform’s ability to process large-scale video data and provide the real-time insights that customers depended on.

After traditional troubleshooting methods and contacting various PostgreSQL vendors, who did not even agree to investigate and troubleshoot, the company was not able to solve the problem and urgently needed a solution to stabilize its database and ensure uninterrupted service delivery.

The Solution

Unlike other vendors, Stormatics thrives in high-pressure environments where deep technical analysis and decisive actions are required. The client engaged Stormatics recognizing this and their expertise in handling complex technical challenges. Stormatics quickly got to work, conducting a comprehensive analysis of the database and surrounding environment. This analysis revealed that the root cause of the database exceptions was index corruption, likely caused by a hardware glitch.

Root Cause Analysis and Resolution
Stormatics took a detailed, step-by-step approach to resolving the issue:

• ◾Investigating the database logs and performance metrics to identify the source of the corruption.
  ◾Pinpointing corrupted indexes as the root cause of the exceptions.
  ◾Performing a VACUUM FULL operation to test and confirm the hypothesis.
  

Note: VACUUM FULL is a PostgreSQL maintenance operation used to optimize the database and resolve data inconsistencies. 

Once the VACUUM FULL operation resolved the issue, Stormatics conducted more in-depth troubleshooting to prevent future occurrences. The team traced the corruption to power fluctuations in the data center, which led to hardware instability. To eliminate the risk of recurrence, the team recommended migrating the database to a different physical server with a stable power supply.

Hardware-Related Index Corruption
The server hosting the database was identified as the primary cause of the issue due to a hardware issue caused by occasional power fluctuations in the data center. Stormatics facilitated a smooth migration of the database to a more reliable server. 

Rapid Implementation and Monitoring
Stormatics consultants zeroed in on the index corruption the very first day and executed VACUUM FULL immediately. After observing the system stability for 1 week, the next step was then to migrate the database to a different server to prevent a recurrence of index corruption. Following the migration, the Stormatics team closely monitored the environment for two additional weeks, ensuring the stability and performance of the system. This allowed the client to resume delivering real-time video insights to their customers with zero interruptions.

The Result

Since Stormatics’ intervention, the client has experienced no further database exceptions or interruptions. This quick and effective solution restored operational stability, allowing the company to focus on empowering their clients to rapidly search, identify, and analyze video data in real time without technical hurdles. The client was impressed by Stormatics’ willingness to tackle complex technical problems and has since engaged them for ongoing internal projects and support. 

Why Stormatics?

Stormatics is a specialized consulting firm dedicated to helping businesses scale PostgreSQL reliably for mission-critical data. 

As your business grows, your database's performance, availability, and compliance can start to lag. These bottlenecks can lead to costly downtime, frustrated users, and missed opportunities. Left unchecked, these issues can threaten your entire application stack and damage customer trust. While many providers push generic solutions, we tailor our services to your unique needs for PostgreSQL. 

At Stormatics, we bring specialized expertise directly to where it’s needed most, offering targeted solutions without forcing you onto unfamiliar platforms. Our approach ensures you get the precise help you need exactly when you need it, so your database never holds your business back.

1. ➡️ Reliable Solutions: You want your database to be reliable, we have the expertise to make sure you can depend on PostgreSQL at scale.
2. ➡️ Customer Satisfaction: Our customers are our biggest asset, and our focus is on excellence in service delivery. We will not rest till you are 100% satisfied.
3. ➡️ Customized Services: Your challenges are unique, and so are our services. Our team collaborates with yours to deliver customized solutions.

We are your trusted PostgreSQL experts

Book a call with us today!