Move the elephant, keep the lights on

Logical replication can enable PostgreSQL major-version upgrades or migrations from Aiven, RDS, Cloud SQL, Azure, or self-managed servers to Aiven with only seconds of application downtime, while preserving the original server as a rollback option. Unlike physical replication or in-place pg_upgrade, it transfers decoded table-row changes across versions and providers, allowing a new target database to be built, synchronized, verified, and activated after a brief cutover. The process requires copying the schema in advance, identifying tables that need replica identities, monitoring lag and retained WAL, verifying data with counts and hashes, freezing or carefully coordinating DDL changes, copying large objects separately, and synchronizing sequences before PostgreSQL 19. Aiven provides logical WAL settings, helper functions, and a one-command migration path through aiven-db-migrate when prerequisites are met, while accompanying scripts support more customized migrations. PostgreSQL 18 improves conflict reporting and replication operations, and PostgreSQL 19 is expected to add native sequence replication, though DDL and large-object migration will still require separate handling; in all cases, removing replication slots after migration is essential to prevent unbounded WAL retention on the source.

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