Case Studies

Case Studies by 2ndQuadrant

The case studies below highlight how 2ndQuadrant solutions and services have been used by various organizations to overcome difficult business problems. With decades of experience, the 2ndQuadrant team can quickly identify and overcome challenges, enabling organizations to effectively meet business needs.

BenchPrep is a Chicago-based learning success platform which allows organizations to offer test preparation and continued learning programs to users across the globe. Over the past few years, due to exponential increase in the demand for online training, the number of organizations using BenchPrep for their learning needs grew significantly. The platform started to have performance issues due to the unexpected load. Find out how 2ndQuadrant recommended solutions to help BenchPrep scale their infrastructure and provide unmatched learning experience to its customers.

European Space Agency (ESA)

The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. ESA’s programs are designed to find out more about Earth, its immediate space environment, the solar system, and the universe. In 2013, on a mission to create the largest and most precise 3D map of the Milky Way Galaxy, ESA launched one of their largest milestone missions yet: The Gaia Project. Find out how PostgresXL helped the ESA Geneva Data Center develop a scalable and open solution with a massively parallel and distributed database for their Gaia Project.


tastyworks is a retail brokerage firm based in Chicago, IL that is leading a financial revolution for the do-it-yourself investor, and uses PostgreSQL as its backend database for its cutting edge technology applications. 2ndQuadrant helped optimize their database with a 4x performance boost and achieve high availability, updated PostgreSQL configuration to meet best practices, seamless migration to new servers and much more!

Healthcare Software Solutions

Healthcare Software Systems is UK’s leading provider of RIS (Radiology Information Systems) to public healthcare organisations, health trusts, hospitals and clinics. With the omnipresent need to manage the cost of providing critical systems to their clients, HSS decided to migrate their patient record database from Oracle to PostgreSQL. HSS decided to migrate their patient record database from Oracle to PostgreSQL. This was by no means a decision made lightly, as the critical nature of the patient record system could not be jeopardised in any way – whether that be loss of access or reduced performance. Learn more about the Healthcare Software Systems’ migration experience with 2ndQuadrant’s world class experts.

London & Partners

London & Partners is a not-for-profit public/private partnership formed by three promotional agencies, providing a large number of services and a potential audience of many millions, London & Partners needs to operate a highly robust IT infrastructure. A truly global reach puts a bigger emphasis on the need to have ‘always-on’ availability, and systems that are fail-proof. It first started working with 2ndQuadrant at the start of a major transformation of a PostgreSQL database. Discover how 2ndQuadrant’s experts have helped London & Partners achieve its goals and what they have to say about their 2ndQuadrant experience.

Animal Logic

Animal Logic Case Study

Animal Logic creates groundbreaking animation and visual effects, producing complex computer-based animations of worldwide success. It’s been using PostgreSQL as a core database technology for many years. With an established studio in Sydney and a new studio in Vancouver, the team started to investigate the options available to them to establish a globally distributed database infrastructure. Animal Logic identified Postgres-BDR as a candidate solution. Postgres-BDR combined with 2ndQuadrant Support service, helped this award-winning studio achieve a highly efficient management of their data.

Telefónica del Sur

Telefonica Del Sur Case Study

Telefónica del Sur is a Chilean telecommunications company that stands out as a technological pioneer, offering customized solutions for telecommunications networks. Telefónica del Sur aims to offer their customers across the country an uninterrupted service, where they can always have access to updated data. To ensure an efficient management of data, a high performing, highly available database environment was needed. Several PostgreSQL replication tools were tested and Postgres-BDR stood out as the best option for their requirements. Postgres-BDR has helped achieve an effective and accurate replication system for geographically distributed Postgres databases.

Alfred Wegener Institute

The Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) is an internationally recognized institute known for expertise in polar and marine research. AWI operates on a variety of research stations which constantly collect an enormous amount of data.  As the demand presented itself, AWI invested in various PostgreSQL versions and operating systems for their applications. This decision inevitably led to a complex database infrastructure where a mixture of different PostgreSQL and OS versions were rarely working in sync. 2ndQuadrant helped AWI set up an homogenous PostgreSQL and OS versions environment with a standardized backup plan.


Navionics has the world’s largest database of marine and lake charts, covering the salt waters of the entire planet. With a continuously growing database, Navionics needed a highly scalable system with a backup and recovery strategy for its critical environment. 2ndQuadrant and its team of world-class experts helped Navionics during the migration process and implemented a proactive failure-proof backup and recovery strategy.

Met Office

The UK-based Met Office is a global leader in weather and climate science. It is a significant consumer of IT, utilising some of the most powerful computing technology available. The Met Office began evaluating database management systems in use, with the goal of reducing costs and introducing flexibility in terms of platform development and special requirements. PostgreSQL was identified as a potential alternative to Oracle DB, and 2ndQuadrant was chosen as a support partner, to provide guidance, training and support. Discover why the Met Office has chosen PostgreSQL as their backend database and how 2ndQuadrant’s experts have supported them for success.

Agilis Systems

Agilis Systems provides GPS fleet tracking solutions for small and mid-sized businesses. It experienced an incremental growth thanks to the rising demand for vehicle tracking solutions, and scaling was inevitably required. It became apparent that either Agilis needed to hire a DBA or consider outside assistance. Agilis Systems chose 2ndQuadrtant’s team of experts for a worry-free 24/7 RDBA service combined with Production Support to provide provide customers uninterrupted services and increase productivity of internal resources and much more!