Materialize/doc/user/content/ingest-data/postgres/neon.md

---

title: "Ingest data from Neon" description: "How to stream data from Neon to Materialize" menu: main:

parent: "postgresql"
name: "Neon"
identifier: "pg-neon"

---

{{< tip >}} {{< guided-tour-blurb-for-ingest-data >}} {{< /tip >}}

Neon is a fully managed serverless PostgreSQL provider. It separates compute and storage to offer features like autoscaling, branching and bottomless storage.

This page shows you how to stream data from a Neon database to Materialize using the PostgreSQL source.

Before you begin

• Make sure you have a Neon account.

• Make sure you have access to your Neon instance via psql or the SQL editor in the Neon Console.

A. Configure Neon

The steps in this section are specific to Neon. You can run them by connecting to your Neon database using a psql client or the SQL editor in the Neon Console.

1. Enable logical replication

{{< warning >}} Enabling logical replication applies globally to all databases in your Neon project, and cannot be reverted. It also restarts all computes, which means that any active connections are dropped and have to reconnect. {{< /warning >}}

Materialize uses PostgreSQL's logical replication protocol to track changes in your database and propagate them to Materialize.

As a first step, you need to make sure logical replication is enabled in Neon.

1. Select your project in the Neon Console.

2. On the Neon Dashboard, select Settings.

3. Select Logical Replication.

4. Click Enable to enable logical replication.

You can verify that logical replication is enabled by running:

SHOW wal_level;

The result should be:

 wal_level
-----------
 logical

2. Create a publication and a replication user

Once logical replication is enabled, the next step is to create a publication with the tables that you want to replicate to Materialize. You'll also need a user for Materialize with sufficient privileges to manage replication.

1. For each table that you want to replicate to Materialize, set the replica identity to FULL:

   ALTER TABLE <table1> REPLICA IDENTITY FULL;
   

   ALTER TABLE <table2> REPLICA IDENTITY FULL;
   

REPLICA IDENTITY FULL ensures that the replication stream includes the

previous data of changed rows, in the case of `UPDATE` and `DELETE`
operations. This setting enables Materialize to ingest Neon data with
minimal in-memory state. However, you should expect increased disk usage in
your Neon database.

1. Create a publication with the tables you want to replicate:

For specific tables:

```postgres
CREATE PUBLICATION mz_source FOR TABLE <table1>, <table2>;
```

_For all tables in the database:_

```postgres
CREATE PUBLICATION mz_source FOR ALL TABLES;
```

The `mz_source` publication will contain the set of change events generated
from the specified tables, and will later be used to ingest the replication
stream.

Be sure to include only the tables you need. If the publication includes
additional tables, Materialize will waste resources on ingesting and then
immediately discarding the data.

1. Create a dedicated user for Materialize, if you don't already have one. The default user created with your Neon project and users created using the Neon CLI, Console or API are granted membership in the neon_superuser role, which has the required REPLICATION privilege.

While you can use the default user for replication, we recommend creating a dedicated user for security reasons.

{{< tabs >}}

{{< tab "Neon CLI">}}

Use the roles create CLI command to create a new role.

neon roles create --name materialize

{{< /tab >}}

{{< tab "Neon Console">}}

1. Navigate to the Neon Console.
2. Select a project.
3. Select Branches.
4. Select the branch where you want to create the role.
5. Select the Roles & Databases tab.
6. Click Add Role.
7. In the role creation dialog, specify the role name as "materialize".
8. Click Create. The role is created, and you are provided with the password for the role.

{{< /tab >}}

{{< tab "API">}}

Use the roles endpoint to create a new role.

curl 'https://console.neon.tech/api/v2/projects/<project_id>/branches/<branch_id>/roles' \
-H 'Accept: application/json' \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $NEON_API_KEY" \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"role": {
    "name": "materialize"
}
}' | jq

{{< /tab >}}

{{< /tabs >}}

1. Grant the user the required permissions on the schema(s) you want to replicate:

   GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA public TO materialize;
   
   GRANT SELECT ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO materialize;
   
   ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public GRANT SELECT ON TABLES TO materialize;
   

Granting SELECT ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA instead of on specific tables avoids having to add privileges later if you add tables to your publication.

B. (Optional) Configure network security

{{< note >}} If you are prototyping and your Neon instance is publicly accessible, you can skip this step. For production scenarios, we recommend using IP Allow to limit the IP addresses that can connect to your Neon instance. {{</ note >}}

Allow Materialize IPs

If you use Neon's IP Allow feature to limit the IP addresses that can connect to your Neon instance, you will need to allow inbound traffic from Materialize IP addresses.

1. In the Materialize console's SQL Shell, or your preferred SQL client connected to Materialize, run the following query to find the static egress IP addresses, for the Materialize region you are running in:

   SELECT * FROM mz_egress_ips;
   

2. In your Neon project, add the IPs to your IP Allow list:

   1. Select your project in the Neon Console.
   2. On the Neon Dashboard, select Settings.
   3. Select IP Allow.
   4. Add each Materialize IP address to the list.

C. Ingest data in Materialize

The steps in this section are specific to Materialize. You can run them in the Materialize console's SQL Shell or your preferred SQL client connected to Materialize.

1. (Optional) Create a cluster

{{< note >}} If you are prototyping and already have a cluster to host your PostgreSQL source (e.g. quickstart), you can skip this step. For production scenarios, we recommend separating your workloads into multiple clusters for resource isolation. {{< /note >}}

{{% postgres-direct/create-a-cluster %}}

2. Start ingesting data

Now that you've configured your database network and created an ingestion cluster, you can connect Materialize to your Neon database and start ingesting data.

1. Run the CREATE SECRET command to securely store the password for the materialize PostgreSQL user you created earlier:

   CREATE SECRET pgpass AS '<PASSWORD>';
   

   You can access the password for your Neon user from the Connection Details widget on the Neon Dashboard.

2. Use the CREATE CONNECTION command to create a connection object with access and authentication details for Materialize to use:

   CREATE CONNECTION pg_connection TO POSTGRES (
     HOST '<host>',
     PORT 5432,
     USER '<user_name>',
     PASSWORD SECRET pgpass,
     SSL MODE 'require',
     DATABASE '<database>'
   );
   

   You can find the connection details for your replication user in the Connection Details widget on the Neon Dashboard. A Neon connection string looks like this:

   postgresql://materialize:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-123456.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/dbname?sslmode=require
   

   • Replace <host> with your Neon hostname (e.g., ep-cool-darkness-123456.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech).
   • Replace <role_name> with the dedicated replication user (e.g., materialize).
   • Replace <database> with the name of the database containing the tables you want to replicate to Materialize (e.g., dbname).

3. Use the CREATE SOURCE command to connect Materialize to your Neon database and start ingesting data from the publication you created earlier:

   CREATE SOURCE mz_source
     IN CLUSTER ingest_postgres
     FROM POSTGRES CONNECTION pg_connection (PUBLICATION 'mz_source')
     FOR ALL TABLES;
   

   By default, the source will be created in the active cluster; to use a different cluster, use the IN CLUSTER clause. To ingest data from specific schemas or tables in your publication, use FOR SCHEMAS (<schema1>,<schema2>) or FOR TABLES (<table1>, <table2>) instead of FOR ALL TABLES.

4. After source creation, you can handle upstream schema changes for specific replicated tables using the ALTER SOURCE...ADD SUBSOURCE and DROP SOURCE syntax.

3. Monitor the ingestion status

{{% postgres-direct/check-the-ingestion-status %}}

4. Right-size the cluster

{{% postgres-direct/right-size-the-cluster %}}

D. Explore your data

{{% postgres-direct/next-steps %}}

Considerations

{{% include-md file="shared-content/postgres-considerations.md" %}}