How to get started with Timescale Cloud

Introduction

Timescale Cloud is the first fully-managed, multi-cloud, time-series database service. It’s the easiest way to get started using TimescaleDB. It lets you easily scale up, scale down, or even scale out via read replicas or database forks (eg useful to populate development or data science environments). It also has built-in high-availability, automated monitoring, automated backups, and point-in-time restore for when you’re ready to move your workloads into production.

In this tutorial we show how to get started using Timescale Cloud.

Step 1 - Sign up for Timescale Cloud

Verify your account by clicking on the link in the email.

Step 2 - Create your first service

Login to Timescale Cloud with your credentials:

Click on the button:

Select TimescaleDB, Choose your cloud provider, region, and service plan. (Note: The dev plans are the cheapest. And you’ll have $300 of free credits to get started.)

Wait a few minutes while the new database is being created.

Step 3 - Install psql

If you don’t already have psql installed, here are instructions.

Step 4 - Connect to your new database via psql

Click on your new service. In the “Overview” tab, you’ll see the Service URI. Click on the “Copy” link to copy it to your clipboard:

Switch over to a terminal window and paste your connection string after the psql command:

$ psql postgres://tsdbadmin:{YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE}@{|YOUR_HOSTNAME_HERE}:{YOUR_PORT_HERE}/defaultdb?sslmode=require

psql (11.3, server 11.4)
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.2, cipher: ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384, bits: 256, compression: off)
Type "help" for help.

defaultdb=> 

Step 5 - Verify that TimescaleDB is installed

Run the \dx command to view all installed extensions:

defaultdb=> \dx
                                      List of installed extensions
    Name     | Version |   Schema   |                            Description                            
-------------+---------+------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------
 plpgsql     | 1.0     | pg_catalog | PL/pgSQL procedural language
 timescaledb | 1.3.2   | public     | Enables scalable inserts and complex queries for time-series data
(2 rows)

defaultdb=>

Conclusion

Well done! Now you are up and running on Timescale Cloud. Now to explore TimescaleDB with a sample dataset, try this tutorial.