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Tested with: Generic connection-string flow · zb migrate 0.1 · no DigitalOcean Managed Databases preset yet

DigitalOcean Managed Databases move to the matching Databasezy engine over the public connection string. PostgreSQL and MySQL clusters can use continuous sync.

DigitalOcean Managed Databases migration at a glance, from the migration source catalogue
Status Coming soon · phase 2
Target engines PostgreSQL , MySQL , Valkey , MongoDB (Percona Server)
How we read it Connection string
Continuous sync Yes, for PostgreSQL and MySQL
Provider preset None yet (generic)
  • A Databasezy instance of the matching engine, or use --create.
  • Access to the cluster’s settings to add trusted sources.

In the DigitalOcean control panel, open the database cluster and copy the public network connection string from its connection details. The private (VPC) host is not reachable from outside your DigitalOcean network. Use a user that owns the tables, such as doadmin.

  • Add our egress IPs as trusted sources on the cluster.

Keep sslmode=require (PostgreSQL) in the URL. Caching clusters (Valkey or Redis) target Valkey; MongoDB clusters target the MongoDB engine, which is coming soon.

  1. Open the target PostgreSQL instance (create one first if you need to) and choose the Migrate in tab.
  2. Under Source, pick Connection string and paste the URL.
  3. Choose Copy and sync to keep the target current until cutover, or Copy for a one-off copy.
  4. Run Preflight and work through the checklist. Blocking items must be fixed before the copy starts.
  5. Start the copy and follow Copy and Verify. Mismatches are listed per table or collection.
  6. When the sync lag is low, stop writes and choose Cut over. The Report step keeps the timings and verification results.

For copy and sync from PostgreSQL, preflight checks wal_level and the replication privilege of the user and tells you what is missing; from MySQL it checks the binlog and GTID settings.

Verification compares what the engine exposes: row counts per table for SQL engines, document counts per collection for document engines, key counts for key-value engines. Mismatches are listed in zb migrate status <mig_id> and the Verify step. Run your application’s tests against the new instance before you switch traffic.

With copy and sync, the target keeps receiving changes after the copy. When zb migrate status reports ready_for_cutover (two lag samples in a row under 5 seconds):

  1. Stop writes to the source: maintenance mode, scale writers to zero, or revoke the application user.
  2. Run zb migrate cutover <mig_id> (or Cut over in the portal). The agent drains the last changes, copies sequence values (PostgreSQL), verifies again and stops replication. If the target cannot catch up in time, the cutover is abandoned and sync keeps running; nothing changes on either side.
  3. Point the application at the Databasezy connection string and resume writes. zb migrate status shows the measured downtime.

Schema changes are not replicated, so freeze migrations between the copy and cutover. Details: what happens at cutover.

Sync applies to PostgreSQL and MySQL targets only; other engines from this source are copy only.

A migration never deletes anything on the source. Until you decommission it, rolling back means pointing the application back at the source.

  • Before cutover: cancel with zb migrate cancel <mig_id>. The publication, replication slot or replication channel the migration created is removed.
  • After cutover: writes made on Databasezy are not on the source. For PostgreSQL, start the migration with --reverse-sync so the old database keeps receiving them after cutover and stays a valid fallback. Without it, copy the new data back with a migration in the other direction before you switch.

The egress addresses are not in the cluster’s trusted sources, or the URL uses the private host.

Check that the source accepts connections from the egress addresses preflight prints, that the host is the public one and that the password has not been rotated. zb migrate --dry-run shows the exact URL that will be used after any rewrites.

Each item has a machine code and a fix. Nothing is written to the target until every blocking item is resolved; warnings do not block.

The source uses an extension Databasezy does not ship. Drop it on the source if it is unused, or exclude the objects that depend on it with --exclude.

Sync is blocked with pg.wal_level or pg.replica_identity

Section titled “Sync is blocked with pg.wal_level or pg.replica_identity”

Logical replication needs wal_level=logical on the source and a primary key (or REPLICA IDENTITY FULL) on every published table. Preflight lists the tables.

Sync is blocked on binlog or GTID settings

Section titled “Sync is blocked on binlog or GTID settings”

Continuous sync needs binlog_format=ROW, gtid_mode=ON, enforce_gtid_consistency=ON and a user with REPLICATION SLAVE and REPLICATION CLIENT. Preflight names whichever is missing.

For anything else, zb migrate status <mig_id> shows the failing step and its message. How migrations work describes every step.