Company and use case

Sentinel Marine Solutions is a leading provider of maritime fleet management solutions, developing and manufacturing software and hardware for monitoring and controlling modern boat systems. Their technology simplifies boat maintenance, prevents unexpected damage, and allows owners to connect and interact with their boats. Sentinel's sophisticated monitoring system collects data on metrics such as real-time location, remaining range and state of charge, travel distance, and fuel levels, serving boat and fleet owners, as well as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Performance problems to solve

As the fleet of boats managed by Sentinel Marine Solutions grew rapidly since 2017, the company began experiencing degraded performance when writing sensor data into their PostgreSQL database. Customers encountered slow loading times when accessing historical data. Initial efforts to tune PostgreSQL’s configuration parameters and adjust application code provided temporary relief, but a permanent solution was necessary to handle the increasing data load and performance demands.

Performance gains unlocked

By selecting Timescale, Sentinel Marine Solutions seamlessly integrated relational data (customer and business information), time-series data (fleet management), and geospatial data (fleet location) within a single system. This consolidation eliminated the need to manage multiple databases, reducing operational complexities. Timescale's fast data processing capabilities, combined with the power of PostGIS spatial functions, enabled Sentinel to quickly test and iterate on new ideas, bringing them to production faster. The integration resulted in tremendous gains in developer productivity and overall system performance.