Simplyblock, a provider of high-speed cloud-native block storage, has crafted its Vela software to deliver instant Postgres database branches—without any data duplication—powered by its own block storage. After developing its Kubernetes-integrated block storage system, the firm has expanded its product lineup to create system application software that makes the most of this storage infrastructure.
Rob Pankow, CEO and co-founder of Simplyblock, holds the view that Postgres is becoming the primary database for AI use cases. For example, Databricks is working on Lakebase, its serverless Postgres database tailored for AI agents. In May 2025, Databricks bought Neon for $1 billion to obtain serverless Postgres technology. Snowflake also acquired Crunchy to integrate its Postgres software, referring to it as “the AI-ready, enterprise-grade, and developer-friendly PostgreSQL database for the AI Data Cloud.” Pankow contends that Postgres has become the foundation of modern AI development and intends to leverage this momentum.
Pankow said: “Vela combines the speed of serverless, the structure of version control, and the resilience of modern storage into a single unified database platform. By bringing together orchestration, virtualization, and high-performance storage under one API-driven architecture, we’re giving teams the tools to run Postgres as a modern platform—not just a database.”
Pankow points out that the next key question is determining the optimal location and method for deploying this solution.
Managed Postgres instances come with notable issues, Pankow noted: “I talk to engineering teams every week, and they all describe similar challenges. They try to scale a managed Postgres instance during a model rollout, only to encounter IOPS limits, throttling periods, and latency spikes exactly when they need consistent performance. They also face cost increases because the only way to stay safe is to overprovision every environment. These problems start off minor but become unmanageable once AI workloads reach production scale.”
Managed databases are one-size-fits-all solutions, but AI workloads require extremely fast storage and predictable performance. They also need large, frequent database clones for testing and experimentation—two areas where managed databases fall short. The internal storage layers of managed systems create inevitable bottlenecks, and their cloning methods rely on snapshot-restore cycles or full physical copies, both of which are slow and expensive, especially at scale.
Pankow recommends that developers run Postgres in their own cloud accounts, placing data and GPUs in the same location. Vela allows users to deploy Postgres on the same instance as their storage, utilizing the speed and performance of local NVMe devices connected to the instance. It provides resilience and scalability, as well as copy-on-write functionality—something usually not available with local storage—all deployed and managed within the user’s own cloud instance with local NVMe devices.
A database branch builds on the clone concept but does away with the inherent disadvantages of data copying by using copy-on-write instead. As we understand it, a branch is a named, versioned development line derived from a parent (typically “main” or another branch), organized in a tree or hierarchical structure. Users can compare changes between branches, merge or promote changes back to the parent, rebase, or resolve conflicts.
Vela is designed from scratch to be self-hostable and cloud-agnostic, with deep integration into Kubernetes. It introduces Git-style branching and instant environment creation. Vela natively manages autoscaling, snapshots, and lifecycle orchestration, and includes integrated authentication, row-level security, a self-service UI, and observability in the control plane. For high performance, it supports RDMA networking via RoCE alongside NVMe/TCP.
Simplyblock has launched a hosted Vela Sandbox, enabling developers to experience the branching model and set up full environments in minutes with no configuration required. Once ready to scale, Vela runs on their own infrastructure—whether on Kubernetes, bare metal, or virtual machines—preserving data sovereignty, security, and operational control.
A Vela Beta is now available, along with documentation, guides, and the hosted sandbox, accessible here.
Beijing Qianxing Jietong Technology Co., Ltd.
Sandy Yang/Global Strategy Director
WhatsApp / WeChat: +86 13426366826
Email: yangyd@qianxingdata.com
Website: www.qianxingdata.com/www.storagesserver.com
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