Why we built Azure HorizonDB for PostgreSQL | POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026
Microsoft built Azure HorizonDB, a 99.9% Postgres database with separated compute/storage and Rust-built storage, for tier-1 scalability.
“HorizonDB is built on the concept of database as logs and separation of compute and storage, which allows compute and storage to scale independently.”
A Microsoft PM detailed why Azure HorizonDB was built: a new Postgres-compatible database with decoupled compute and storage, shared WAL storage across availability zones, and a Rust-built storage layer for tier-1 performance and scalability. It matters as a cloud-infrastructure signal showing Microsoft re-architecting Postgres for Azure and adopting Rust for performance-critical services, but it is more of a database/cloud engineering announcement than a core AI industry signal.