Chapter 5:
Patroni
Automating high availability so you can focus on growth
Downtime isn’t just frustrating; it’s expensive. Whether you’re running customer-facing apps, processing payments, or powering real-time analytics, PostgreSQL outages put your business at risk. Users don’t care why it’s down. They just know it’s not working.
High availability is the answer, but it’s not automatic. Setting up reliable failover, managing replication, and avoiding split-brain scenarios takes serious effort. And when something breaks, scrambling to fix it manually isn’t a plan.
Patroni solves that problem. It provides automated failover, cluster health management, and built-in resilience so your database stays online even when infrastructure doesn’t.
Why Patroni matters for enterprise PostgreSQL
1. Automatic failover you can rely on
Patroni monitors your PostgreSQL nodes and promotes a healthy replica to primary if the current one fails. Failover happens automatically, with no need for manual intervention or risky recovery procedures. That means fewer service disruptions… and fewer midnight phone calls.
2. Data integrity without the risk of split-brain
Patroni uses distributed consensus (via etcd, Consul, or ZooKeeper) to coordinate failovers and ensure only one node ever acts as the primary. That eliminates the risk of split-brain scenarios, keeping your data consistent and your applications running smoothly.
3. Built for scale and complexity
Whether you’re supporting large volumes of transactions or running across regions, Patroni can handle the load. It integrates with tools like pgBackRest and HAProxy, and supports PostgreSQL deployments in hybrid, multi-cloud, and containerized environments.
4. Kubernetes-ready from day one
Patroni is the backbone of many Kubernetes-based PostgreSQL deployments, including the Percona Operator for PostgreSQL. If you're building a cloud-native platform, Patroni gives you automated HA without bolting on custom logic or external scripts.
5. Meets security and compliance needs
From audit logging and encryption to strict role-based access, Patroni works alongside PostgreSQL's native security features to help your environment stay compliant, even when dealing with failover events.
Your options for implementing Patroni
Option 1: DIY configuration and operations
Installing and running Patroni on your own gives you full control, but it comes with complexity. You’ll need to configure HA behavior across all nodes, integrate with backup and load-balancing systems, and handle upgrades and tuning on your own. This route works for experienced teams but requires constant attention.
Option 2: Proprietary HA tools from commercial vendors
Some vendors offer HA through their proprietary PostgreSQL distributions. That may simplify setup, but it can limit how you configure failover, restrict your deployment flexibility, and lock you into licensing agreements that don’t scale with your needs.
Option 3: Use Patroni as part of a tested, open source PostgreSQL solution
Percona for PostgreSQL includes Patroni as part of its fully open source, enterprise-ready architecture. It’s pre-configured for real workloads, tested to work with critical tools like pgBackRest and HAProxy, and backed by 24/7 support. You get the benefits of automation and HA without vendor lock-in or licensing costs.
Keeping PostgreSQL available, even when things go wrong
Unplanned downtime doesn’t always make headlines, but it does impact your business. With Patroni in place, your PostgreSQL environment is protected against hardware failures, traffic spikes, cloud outages, and human error. Failover is handled automatically. Consistency is preserved. And your team stays focused on the important stuff instead of recovering from the latest incident.