Architecture decisions in Neon

Neon is developing a modern, cloud-native, serverless Postgres service that separates storage and compute to enhance performance and scalability while maintaining 100% compatibility with existing Postgres applications. Inspired by architectures like AWS Aurora but seeking to improve upon them by offering an open-source solution, Neon's design employs a smart storage layer to replace traditional filesystems, facilitating operations such as instant recovery, fast startup and shutdown of compute instances, and independent scaling of CPU and I/O resources. Key architectural decisions include separating the WAL (write-ahead log) and page services to improve durability and availability, as well as leveraging cloud object storage for efficient data retention and retrieval. This approach allows for cost-effective storage management, enabling features like Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) by storing historical page versions. By using immutable files and cloud storage, Neon aims to provide a robust and efficient platform for running Postgres, supporting branching, and allowing independent development of its architecture components.