PTC improves operational efficiency with migration to Azure Database for PostgreSQL

As a global leader in product lifecycle management, PTC specializes in cutting-edge software that helps companies of all sizes transform how they design, manufacture, and maintain their products. Whether building planes, medical devices, wind turbines, or computers, businesses can rely on PTC’s portfolio of software as a solution (SaaS) and cloud-native solutions for innovation and efficiency. These solutions help simplify product complexity, drive excellence in engineering and design, streamline manufacturing, and promote optimization of operations and service with real-time insights.

Along with product lifecycle management (PLM), PTC also offers tools for application lifecycle management, computer-aided design (CAD), service lifecycle management, industrial Internet of Things (IoT), and augmented reality. All of these tools support ongoing performance, security, and productivity for PCT’s customers.

“The reliability of our system is crucial for our customers in various industries, from manufacturing to medical,” says Mike Jasperson, Vice President of IoT Software Operations and Support at PTC. “If our system is down, it can impact people receiving health treatments.”

A standardized platform

Wanting to provide customers with enhanced reliability and performance, and more rapidly respond and scale to meet their needs, PTC migrated its disparate cloud operations to Microsoft Azure. “With Azure, we get standardization and control over deployment operations to simplify service delivery to customers and to provide a platform to innovate with AI,” says Jasperson. “We also gain geo-redundant backup capabilities that support high reliability of services.”

PTC then migrated data for more than 300 customers to Azure Database for PostgreSQL using Migration Service for Azure Database for PostgreSQL. With Linux virtual machines (VMs) in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), PTC increased performance and security for applications running on AKS clusters, along with efficient deployment of AI and machine learning workloads for complex algorithms and generative AI tasks. Deployment automation facilitated the process of delivering SaaS services.

“Azure Database for PostgreSQL gives us greater performance capabilities and flexibility, enabling smaller teams to do more—especially when managing large numbers of databases,” says Jasperson.

As an open-source relational database management system with greater extensibility and compliance with SQL standards, it also gives PTC more granular control over IOPS (input/output operations per second) and storage. As a result, the service supports better tailoring of resources to customer needs without overprovisioning.

PTC also gained better control over maintenance windows and in-place upgrades. “With Azure Database for PostgreSQL, we can manage database versions without the need to export and import data for upgrades—often a challenge with large databases,” says Karen Morrissette Tajalli, Cloud Services Infrastructure Database Sr. Manager at PTC.

Azure Monitor helps PTC proactively manage environments and performance of the overall infrastructure, while Microsoft Defender provides enhanced security. “We can easily spot and fix problems before they become more serious ones,” adds Morrissette Tajalli.

To optimize performance in connected factory settings, PTC runs ThingWorx—its end-to-end industrial IoT platform that supports rapid development and deployment of advanced applications and augmented reality experiences—on Azure Database for PostgreSQL. This supports enhanced digital performance management, providing customers with real-time insights across connected systems and devices. PTC customers gain comprehensive time and cost analysis of processes and the ability to quickly identify areas for streamlining and increased productivity.

Superior performance

With the database migrations now nearing completion, PTC reports that Azure Database for PostgreSQL is already delivering superior performance, including faster processing times, more reliable operations, simplified deployment, and more effective use of telemetry data for proactive service management.

It’s also helping control costs and optimize resource usage while supporting PTC’s use of generative AI and the company’s applied analytics and AI strategy, which aims to apply practical AI solutions to customers’ top problems. “This opens new possibilities for AI innovation utilizing capabilities on Azure and Azure AI services directly within the database,” says Jasperson.