Guide: PostgreSQL + Redis as a Production Foundation

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The two services almost every application needs, tuned instead of defaulted: production-tuned PostgreSQL (shared buffers, WAL compression), Redis with AOF + RDB persistence, and a scheduled backup job with retention.

What this is

A deployment guide with working examples — not a downloadable product. Everything below is the actual configuration I use, abridged to the parts that matter.

Deployment example

services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:${POSTGRES_VERSION:-16-alpine}
    container_name: db-postgres
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./config/postgres/postgresql.conf:/etc/postgresql/postgresql.conf:ro
      - ./config/postgres/init:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d:ro
      - backup_data:/backups
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=${POSTGRES_USER:-app}
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD:?POSTGRES_PASSWORD is required}
      - POSTGRES_DB=${POSTGRES_DB:-app}
      - PGDATA=/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata
    ports:
      - ${POSTGRES_PORT:-5432}:5432
    command:
      - postgres
      - -c
      - config_file=/etc/postgresql/postgresql.conf
    healthcheck:
      test:
        - CMD-SHELL
        - pg_isready -U ${POSTGRES_USER:-app}
      interval: 15s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    networks:
      - db_network
  redis:
    image: redis:${REDIS_VERSION:-7-alpine}
    container_name: db-redis
    restart: unless-stopped
    command:
      - redis-server
      - --appendonly
      - 'yes'
      - --appendfsync
      - everysec
      - --requirepass
      - ${REDIS_PASSWORD:?REDIS_PASSWORD is required}
      - --maxmemory
      - ${REDIS_MAX_MEMORY:-512mb}
      - --maxmemory-policy
      - allkeys-lru
      - --save
      - 900 1
      - --save
      - 300 10
      - --save
      - 60 10000
    volumes:
      - redis_data:/data
    ports:
      - ${REDIS_PORT:-6379}:6379
    healthcheck:
      test:
        - CMD
        - redis-cli
        - --raw
        - incr
        - ping
      interval: 15s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    networks:
      - db_network

Excerpt — postgres, redis from the compose file. The remaining services (proxies, init jobs, exporters) follow the same pattern and mount their configuration from a config/ directory.

Essential environment variables

Copy .env.example to .env and at minimum set:

POSTGRES_VERSION=16-alpine
POSTGRES_USER=app
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=change_me
POSTGRES_DB=app
POSTGRES_PORT=5432
PGDATA=/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata

Production checklist

• Set strong, unique secrets in .env before the first start — never ship the example values
• Pin image versions and test upgrades on a staging copy first
• Configure and restore-test backups before you rely on them
• Put the stack behind TLS and restrict management UIs to a VPN or allowlist
• Wire the stack into monitoring and alerting from day one

A guide, not a product. This page is deployment documentation with working examples — there is no zip, no download, no support contract. You adapt the patterns to your own environment, and you own the result.

Want this running production-grade in your infrastructure instead? Foundation work like this is my standard infrastructure consulting scope — details on the consulting page: €1,000/day, remote or on-site, invoice as usual.