What is Amazon RDS?Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is a managed SQL database service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon RDS supports an array of database engines to store and organize data. It also helps with relational database management tasks, such as data migration, backup, recovery and patching. Show
Amazon RDS facilitates the deployment and maintenance of relational databases in the cloud. A cloud administrator uses Amazon RDS to set up, operate, manage and scale a relational instance of a cloud database. Amazon RDS is not itself a database; it is a service used to manage relational databases.
How does Amazon RDS work?Databases are used to store large quantities of data that applications can draw on to help them perform various functions. A relational database uses tables to store data. It is called relational because it organizes data points with defined relationships. Administrators control Amazon RDS with the AWS Management Console, Amazon RDS API calls or the AWS Command Line Interface. They use these interfaces to deploy database instances to which users can apply specific settings. Amazon provides several instance types with different combinations of resources, such as CPU, memory, storage options and networking capacity. Each type comes in a variety of sizes to suit the needs of different workloads. RDS users can use AWS Identity and Access Management to define and set permissions for who can access an RDS database. Amazon RDS featuresAmazon RDS features include the following: Replication. RDS uses the Replication feature to create read replicas. These are read-only copies of database instances that applications use without altering the original production database. Administrators can also enable automatic failover across multiple availability zones through RDS Multi-AZ deployment and with synchronous data replication. See how read replicas create read-only snapshots of database instances to help with load balancing.Storage. RDS provides three types of storage:
Monitoring. The Amazon CloudWatch service enables managed monitoring. It lets users view capacity and I/O metrics. Patching. RDS provides patches for whichever database engine the user chooses. Backups. Another feature is failure detection and recovery. RDS provides managed instance backups with transaction logs to enable point-in-time recovery. Users pick a retention period and restore databases to any time during that period. They also can manually take snapshots of instances that remain until they are manually deleted. RDS lets users specify the time and duration of the backup processes. They also can choose how long to retain backups and snapshots.Incremental billing. Users pay a monthly fee for the instances they launch. Encryption. RDS uses public key encryption to secure automated backups, read replicas, data snapshots and other data stored at rest. What are the benefits and drawbacks of Amazon RDS?There are several pros and cons to using Amazon RDS. BenefitsThe main benefit of Amazon RDS is that it helps organizations deal with the complexity of managing large relational databases. Other benefits include the following:
DrawbacksSome downsides of using Amazon RDS include the following:
Amazon RDS database instancesA database administrator can create, configure, manage and delete an Amazon RDS instance, along with the resources it uses. An Amazon RDS instance is a cloud database environment. Admins can also spin up many databases or schemas; how many depends on the database used. Amazon RDS limits each customer to a total of 40 database instances per account. AWS imposes further limitations for Oracle and SQL Server instances. With those database instances, a user generally can only have up to 10. Amazon RDS database enginesAn AWS customer can spin up six types of database engines within Amazon RDS:
Amazon RDS adds support for major and minor versions of database engines over time. It is designed to allow admins to specify an engine version when they create a database instance. In most cases, Amazon RDS can support developer code, applications and tools that are already in use with existing databases. AWS provides other database services, including the following:
Amazon RDS use casesAmazon RDS' scalability, security and availability make it useful for a variety of applications. Some possible uses include the following: Online retailing. These applications manage complex databases that track inventories, transactions and pricing. Mobile and online gaming. RDS supports developers that need to continuously update these applications and users who need high availability. Travel applications. Applications like Airbnb take advantage of RDS' ability to simplify time-consuming database administration tasks and automate database replication. Mobile apps like Airbnb also take advantage of RDS' scalable storage capability. Streaming applications. Applications like Netflix take advantage of RDS' storage scalability as well, and availability of Amazon RDS, which allows them to handle high demand daily. Finance applications. These applications, like other mobile applications, can use RDS to simplify administrative database tasks and save time and money. Business-to-business reporting company Enlyft said 6,096 companies were using Amazon RDS in 2021, including The American Red Cross, Penguin Random House and Zendesk. Amazon also reported in 2021 that Airbnb, Intuit and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are among the organizations that use RDS to support their data workloads. Amazon Aurora and Amazon Aurora Serverless vs. Amazon RDSAmazon Aurora is a database engine created by Amazon. RDS is a service used to manage database engines and instances, including Amazon Aurora databases. Amazon Aurora Serverless can also be used to manage instances of Amazon Aurora. Its automation features relieve developers from having to manually launch servers and manage database capacity. With RDS, servers must be manually scaled, which can result in significant downtime. Aurora Serverless' automatic scaling capability enables faster deployment with little to no downtime. One downside of Aurora Serverless is it only works with Amazon Aurora, MySQL and PostgreSQL. RDS is compatible with six database engines. Organizations should assess the two database management options. Both have advantages and limitations, depending on the type of application they serve. Aurora Serverless is considered suitable for applications with unpredictable and steep spikes in usage, which need more efficient capacity adjustments. Amazon RDS is suitable for more predictable applications because capacity adjustments take more time in RDS than in Aurora Serverless. The takeawayAmazon RDS helps organizations handle relational database management tasks such as migration, backup, recovery and patching. Some of the main features of Amazon RDS are replication, high performance storage and failure detection. One of the biggest advantages of Amazon RDS is its ease of use. It lets administrators manage multiple database instances without having to learn other database management tools. These features enable RDS to help organizations cut costs that come from time-consuming database administration tasks and manage the hidden costs that come with using high-performance storage in AWS. Learn more about ways to manage AWS costs. Which AWS database service provides automatic backups by default?Automated Backups
Turned on by default, the automated backup feature of Amazon RDS will backup your databases and transaction logs. Amazon RDS automatically creates a storage volume snapshot of your DB instance, backing up the entire DB instance and not just individual databases.
What is automated backup in AWS?AWS Backup is designed to help you automate and centrally manage your backups. You can create policy-driven backup plans, monitor the status of on-going backups, verify compliance, and find / restore backups, all using a central console.
How do I do an automated backup in AWS?Using a backup plan within AWS Backup lets you automate backups using tags.. Step 1: Go to the AWS Backup console. ... . Step 2: Configure an on-demand AWS Backup job of an Amazon EC2 instance. ... . Step 3: Configure an automatic AWS Backup job of an Amazon EC2 instance. ... . Step 4: Restore an Amazon EC2 instance using AWS Backup.. Does AWS have automatically backup data?AWS Backup lets you apply backup plans to your AWS resources by simply tagging them. AWS Backup then automatically backs up your AWS resources according to the backup plan that you defined.
|