A technical co-founder of a bootstrapped SaaS startup shares how implementing database partitioning led to a significant reduction in cloud costs.
Despite their user base growing to 85,000, the startup managed to reduce their AWS bill by over $35,000 monthly without sacrificing performance.
The solution was implementing a 'boring' database feature, database partitioning, which divides a database table into smaller partitions for better management.
The startup's application, a compliance management platform for financial services, stored data intensively using a standard tech stack before implementing database partitioning.
They realized a cost-saving opportunity after discovering that 93% of their queries were accessing less than 5% of their data.
By implementing a partitioning strategy for their largest tables, they achieved improved performance and cost savings on AWS RDS.
PostgreSQL's declarative partitioning syntax was utilized for implementing partitioning strategies on AWS RDS.
The startup saw benefits beyond cost savings, including improved development focus, consistent application response times, and enhanced unit economics.
Database partitioning, although adding complexity, proved to be manageable and beneficial for the startup without requiring major application changes.
Proper analysis of query patterns, strategic partitioning key selection, and implementation of maintenance scripts are crucial for successful database partitioning.
The article emphasizes the value of fundamental solutions like database partitioning for sustainable infrastructure and cost-effective growth in data-heavy applications.