Microsoft acquires open source start-up firm Citus Data

Microsoft acquires open source start-up firm Citus Data
Move aims to improve the performance and scale of Azure PostgreSQL

Elly Yates-Roberts |


Microsoft has acquired open source start-up firm Citus Data in order to improve the performance and scale of Azure PostgreSQL, a fully managed database service for app development and deployment. The acquisition aims to deliver enterprise-ready features from the cloud to PostgreSQL and enable PostgreSQL workloads to run on Azure seamlessly.

According to a Rohan Kumar, corporate vice president of Azure Data, Citus is an open source extension to PostgreSQL that transforms it into a distributed database. 

“It gives enterprises the performance advantages of a horizontally scalable database while staying current with all the latest innovations in PostgreSQL,” Kumar wrote in a recent blog post. “Citus is available as a fully-managed database as a service, as enterprise software, and as a free open source download.”

Since the launch of Microsoft’s fully managed community-based database service for PostgreSQL in March 2018, its adoption has surged. Earlier this month, it was named DBMS of the Year by DB-Engines. 

“The acquisition of Citus Data builds on Azure’s open source commitment and enables us to provide the massive scalability and performance our customers demand as their workloads grow,” said Kumar.

The partnership aims to leverage data even further, enabling customers to scale complex multi-tenant SaaS applications and accelerate the time to insight with real-time analytics, all while using PostgreSQL’s familiar tools.

“I am incredibly excited to welcome the high-calibre Citus Data team to Microsoft! Working together, we will accelerate the delivery of key, enterprise-ready features from Azure to PostgreSQL and enable critical PostgreSQL workloads to run on Azure with confidence,” said Kumar. 

“We continue to be energised by building on our promise around Azure as the most comprehensive cloud to run open source and proprietary workloads at any scale and look forward to working with the PostgreSQL community to accelerate innovation to customers.”

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