Create an MST service

Managed Service for TimescaleDB (MST) is hosted TimescaleDB offered in partnership with Aiven.

Create your first service

A service in Managed Service for TimescaleDB is a cloud instance on your chosen cloud provider, which you can install your database on.

1. Sign in to your MST Console

   Sign in to your Managed Service for TimescaleDB Console.

2. Click Create service and choose TimescaleDB

   Update your preferences:

   

   • In the Select Your Cloud Service Provider field, click your preferred provider.
   • In the Select Your Cloud Service Region field, click your preferred server location. This is often the server that’s physically closest to you.
   • In the Select Your Service Plan field, click your preferred plan, based on the hardware configuration you require. If you are in your trial period, and just want to try the MST service out, or develop a proof of concept, we recommend the Dev plan, because it is the most cost-effective during your trial period.
3. Review your settings and click Create Service

   In the information bar on the right of the screen, review the settings you have selected for your MST service. The MST service takes a few minutes to provision.

Connect to your MST service from the command prompt

When you have an MST service up and running, you can connect to it from your local system using the psql command-line utility. This is the same tool you might have used to connect to PostgreSQL before, but if you haven’t installed it yet, check out the installing psql section.

1. Sign in to your MST Console

   Sign in to your MST Console.

2. Find your service

   In the Services tab, find the MST service you want to connect to, and check it is marked as Running.

3. Get the connection details

   Click the name of the MST service you want to connect to see the connection information. Take a note of the host, port, and password.

4. Connect with psql

   On your local system, at the command prompt, connect to the MST service, using your own MST service details:

   psql -x "postgres://tsdbadmin:<PASSWORD>@<HOSTNAME>:<PORT>/defaultdb?sslmode=require"

   If your connection is successful, you’ll see a message like this, followed by the psql prompt:

   psql (13.3, server 13.4)
   SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, bits: 256, compression: off)
   Type "help" for help.
   defaultdb=>

Check that you have the TimescaleDB extension

TimescaleDB is provided as an extension to your PostgreSQL database, and it is enabled by default when you create a new MST service on Managed Service for TimescaleDB. You can check that the TimescaleDB extension is installed by using the \dx command at the psql prompt. It looks like this:

defaultdb=> \dx

List of installed extensions
-[ RECORD 1 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
Name        | plpgsql
Version     | 1.0
Schema      | pg_catalog
Description | PL/pgSQL procedural language
-[ RECORD 2 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
Name        | timescaledb
Version     | 2.5.1
Schema      | public
Description | Enables scalable inserts and complex queries for time-series data

defaultdb=>

Install and update TimescaleDB Toolkit

Run this command on each database you want to use Toolkit with:

CREATE EXTENSION timescaledb_toolkit;

Update an installed version of Toolkit using this command:

ALTER EXTENSION timescaledb_toolkit UPDATE;

Where to next

Now that you have your first MST service up and running, check out the rest of the docs in this section, to find out what you can do with it.

If you want to work through some tutorials to help you get up and running with TimescaleDB and time-series data, check out Learn.

You can always contact us for any questions you might have.