Updated September 2025

Learn Azure PostgreSQL Flexible Server: Build Scalable, Secure, and High-Performance Databases

Class Duration

21 hours of live training delivered over 3-5 days to accommodate your scheduling needs

Student Prerequisites

No prior experience with PostgreSQL is necessary
Students should have a basic understanding of SQL and relational databases

Target Audience

Software engineers, DBAs, data engineers, SREs, and cloud architects seeking results: deploy Azure PostgreSQL Flexible Server quickly, harden identity and network access, tune queries, automate HA/backup, scale cost-efficiently, meet compliance, and run low-downtime migrations with actionable observability.

Description

This course is designed for software engineers, database professionals, and cloud architects who want to build and operate scalable, secure, and high-performing databases using Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server. Participants will learn how to provision and manage PostgreSQL Flexible Server through both Azure Portal and CLI, configure high availability, and secure access with authentication, roles, and encryption.

You'll dive into performance tuning, observability with Azure-native tools, and integration with Power BI and Grafana. Real-world backup and restore practices, along with scalable resource management and zero-downtime migration strategies, make this course essential for teams modernizing data infrastructure on Azure.

Learning Outcomes

Differentiate DBMS, RDBMS, and NoSQL options and map them to workload requirements; explain core SQL and PostgreSQL architecture.
Plan Azure foundations for PostgreSQL: subscriptions, regions, availability zones, resource groups, cost controls, and governance.
Provision Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server via portal and Azure CLI, selecting version, workload, compute, storage, and performance tiers.
Secure servers and data using Microsoft Entra ID, PostgreSQL roles, least-privilege grants, encryption in transit/at rest, SSL, firewalls, and Defender for Cloud.
Administer servers and databases: start/stop, upgrades, networking, parameters (static/dynamic/read-only), tags, locks, and activity logs; connect via VS Code, psql, pgAdmin, and DBeaver.
Implement backup and restore strategies: automated, manual, vaulted, geo-redundant; use pg_dump and pg_restore to validate recovery workflows.
Scale with confidence: vertical and horizontal options, compute and storage scaling, read replicas, and near-zero downtime techniques.
Monitor and optimize: use EXPLAIN and index tuning; instrument metrics, logs, alerts, and dashboards with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Grafana, Power BI, and Microsoft Fabric.

Training Materials

All students receive comprehensive courseware covering all topics in the course. Courseware is distributed via GitHub in the form of documentation and extensive code samples. Students practice the topics covered through challenging hands-on lab exercises. Students will need a free, personal GitHub account to access the courseware. Students are provided a cloud-based environment for all demonstrations and lab exercises.

Software Requirements

Students will need a free, personal GitHub account to access the courseware. Students are provided a cloud-based environment for all demonstrations and lab exercises.

Training Topics

Relational Databases

Database Management Systems (DBMS)
Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS)
Other Database Types (e.g. NoSQL)
SQL Language

PostgreSQL

Overview
PostgreSQL History
Azure PostgreSQL History
Use Cases
Architecture
On-Premise Options
Cloud Options

Azure

Overview
Subscriptions
Managing Costs
Regions
Availability Zones
Resource Groups
Cloud Shell
Azure CLI
Log Analytics Workspace
Microsoft Fabric
PostgreSQL Flexible Server

PostgreSQL Flexible Server

Create PostgreSQL Flexible Server with the Portal
Create PostgreSQL Flexible Server with the Azure CLI
Region & Availability Zones
Server Version
Workload Type
Compute Tier + Size
Storage Type + Size
Performance Tier
High Availability
Authentication
Firewall Rules
Explore Portal UI
Resource Locks
Activity Log
Tags

Manage Database Server

Delete Database Server
Stop/Start Database Server
Reset Password
Upgrade Server Version
Network Access
Server Parameters (incl. pgvector for AI/ML workloads)
Static Parameters
Dynamic Parameters
Read-Only Parameters

Connect

Connect with VS Code
PSQL in Cloud Shell
PSQL Locally
PgAdmin
DBeaver

Databases

Create/Drop Databases using the Portal
Create/Drop Databases using PSQL
Create/Drop Databases using PgAdmin
Create/Drop Databases using DBeaver

Security

User Authentication Methods
Microsoft Entra Id
PostgreSQL Roles
Manage Roles with SQL
Granting and Revoking Privileges
Data Encryption at Rest
Data Encryption in Transit
Secure TCP/IP Connections with SSL and SSH
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Identity

Backup and Restore

Backups and Computer Tier
Backups and Region/Zone
Geo-redundancy
Automated Backups
Manual Backups
Vaulted Backups
pg_dump & pg_restore

Scaling Resources

Scaling Options
Scale Compute
Scale Storage
Vertical Scaling
Horizontal Scaling
Near-zero Downtime Scaling

Replication and High Availability

Explore Replication
Virtual Endpoints
Read Replicas
High Availability
Same Zone
Zone Redundant
Automatic Failover
Elastic Cluster
Nodes

Performance Tuning

Monitoring and Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN
Query Performance Insight
Index tuning

Observability & Diagnostics

Resource Visualizer
Advisor Recommendations
Alerts
Metrics
Diagnostic Settings
Streaming Logs
Server Logs
Power BI
Azure Monitor
Azure Log Analytics
Azure Dashboards
Grafana Integration
Microsoft Fabric

Migration

Migration Overview
From Azure Database for PostgreSQL
From Azure Virtual Machine
From Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL
From Amazon EC2
From Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL
From Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL
From Google Compute Engine
From On-premise Server
Options: Validate & Migrate
Mode: Offline & Online
Runtime Server & Azure Networking