For any company leveraging relational databases to power their applications, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is a game changer. This in-depth guide provides everything a technical user or decision maker needs to know to effectively utilize RDS across a variety of workloads.
An Overview of RDS Benefits
As a managed service, Amazon RDS provides all the administrative tasks involved in setting up and maintaining a high performance, reliable relational database. This includes mundane management like hardware provisioning, software patching, setup and configuration, backups, scaling capacity on demand, and failure recovery.
RDS eliminates the complexity associated with database ops, freeing you to focus on product innovation and unlocking value from data. Some key benefits include:
Lower TCO
Forget huge upfront costs with pay-as-you-go pricing. Benefit from the economies of scale of AWS infrastructure.
Improved Productivity
Stop wasting engineering resources on database maintenance. Focus on creating differentiated customer value.
Enhanced Agility
Spin up new database environments instantly as needs change. Painlessly scale capacity on demand.
Increased Reliability
Leverage mature AWS services proven across millions of databases to achieve enterprise-grade uptime.
Robust Security
Rely on state-of-the-art physical and virtual security including encryption, IAM, VPCs and security groups.
Clearly for usage spanning development environments to mission critical production systems, RDS delivers simplified database operations coupled with smoother scaling. Next let‘s dive deeper across RDS capabilities.
RDS Database Engine Selection
A major RDS benefit is support for the most widely used open source and commercial database engines. This flexibility allows matching your optimal database technology to application needs.
| Database Engine | Overview | Use Cases |
|---|---|---|
| MySQL | Most popular open source relational database. Fully managed by RDS. | High volume web apps, ecommerce, mobile backend |
| PostgreSQL | Advanced open source database with a strong reputation for reliability, stability, and correctness. | Applications needing complex data types, NoSQL functionality |
| Microsoft SQL Server | High performance enterprise-grade RDBMS powering critical workloads. | Business intelligence, ERP, CRM, custom LoB apps |
| Oracle Database | Heavyweight commercial database focused on highest availability and scalability. | High transaction rate OLTP apps, enterprise systems |
| MariaDB | Enhanced community fork of MySQL focused on performance improvements. | Modern web apps needing analytics functionality |
| Amazon Aurora | AWS proprietary database delivering 5x MySQL performance with auto-scaling storage. | High throughput web apps, backend processing |
This ability to fine tune the RDS runtime to optimize support for your apps means you don‘t have to settle for lowest common denominator technology. Purpose build database infrastructure tailored to your workloads.
RDS Instance Sizing
RDS offers a variety of instance sizes letting you dial in the right blend of CPU and memory. This allows tailoring hardware to workload demands to improve price/performance.
| Instance Type | vCPUs / Memory | Use Cases |
|---|---|---|
| General Purpose | 2-32 vCPUs Up to 128 GB RAM |
Ideal for a wide range of workloads from web/mobile apps to enterprise apps needing balanced resources |
| Memory Optimized | 2-144 vCPUs Up to 12 TB RAM |
In-memory caches, analysis and reporting, ERP systems requiring high memory |
| Burstable Performance | 2-24 vCPUs Up to 32GB RAM |
Workloads with periodic spikes such as dev/test environments |
Right sizing RDS instances based on typical workload patterns enables avoiding the high cost of over provisioning while still meeting performance SLAs during traffic surges.
RDS Storage Capabilities
Matching your RDS storage configuration to workload patterns boosts performance while controlling costs. Understand your capacity requirements along with IOPS needs.
| Storage Type | IOPS | Typical Latency | Ideal Workloads |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Purpose SSD | Up to 16,000 | < 1 ms | Development environments and lightly used production workloads |
| Provisioned IOPS SSD | Up to 320,000 | < 1 ms | Transactional and I/O intensive production systems |
| Magnetic Storage | Burst to hundreds | Milliseconds | Ideal for sequential access such as data warehousing |
Optimizing RDS storage delivers speed for I/O sensitive apps while providing economical object storage for big data analytics pipelines pulling TBs of information.
RDS Key Capabilities and Features
Let‘s explore key functional areas where RDS shines compared to self-managed databases.
PerformanceEfficiency
AutomatingAdministration
Manually installing database servers, patching and upgrades is time consuming. RDS fully manages and monitors databases automatically applying patches and minor version updates. This frees your team to deliver application innovation rather than database maintenance.
Multi-AZHigh Availability
Mission critical systems require maximum uptime and fast disaster recovery. RDS Multi-AZ deployments span multiple isolated infrastructure Availability Zones to remove single points of failure. You gain fast failover and built-in automated backups improving business continuity.
Read Replicas
Scaling read performance is straightforward with RDS read replicas. These allow creating one or more read-only copies of your production database. Point read queries from apps to replicas lowering latency while cutting load on your primary RDS instance.
Storage Auto Scaling
Managing exponential data growth is simplified via storage auto scaling. This enables defining maximum storage thresholds for your database. RDS handles automatically provisioning additional capacity as needed ensuring room for your growing repository.
Security
Data Encryption
All RDS engines provide encryption for data at rest utilizing AES-256 encryption keys. Deployments are isolated using Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) to tightly restrict access. Data in transit is protected using SSL certificates between database clients and RDS.
IAM Authentication
The AWS Identity and Access Management Service (IAM) integrates with RDS enabling database authentication using IAM credentials. This allows managing database access permissions and enforcing least privilege authorization using IAM policies.
CloudTrail Integration
Viewable via AWS CloudTrail, all API calls made to RDS by users, roles and applications are logged with details included. This provides full visibility into management of your RDS infrastructure so activity is fully auditable.
Cost Management
Per Second Billing
Pay only for the exact RDS resources utilized down to the second. This includes compute instance hours, I/O requests, backup storage, and data transfer. No waste means greater cost efficiency as you scale up and down.
Reserved Instances
Lock in significant RDS cost savings with Reserved Instances for workloads needing reliable database performance. Get up to 72% off on demand costs via 1 to 3 year terms reserving capacity.
AWS Cost Explorer
This free tool delivers visibility into AWS costs including RDS. Easily track spending trends, identify top expenses, and get custom recommendations on saving money. This helps manage budgets through growth phases.
Ideal RDS Use Cases
Nearly any application currently leveraging relational databases is a candidate for migration to RDS. Here are sweet spot workloads and verticals:
eCommerce
From the product catalog to order processing, ecommerce is powered by databases. High volume transactional workloads for managing customer profiles, shopping carts, and order fulfilment are perfect RDS use cases.
Mobile Applications
The backend data tier is where mobile apps truly shine. RDS provides the scalable, reliable and secure database to build innovative user experiences while managing tremendous growth.
Web Applications
Websites rely on database performance and uptime to ensure excellent visitor experiences. RDS eases cloud migration eliminating scaling and management pain points.
Content Management Systems
Leading content management systems like WordPress and Drupal combined with RDS make managing everything from blog sites to sophisticated digital experiences smooth.
Business Intelligence
Centralizing enterprise data in RDS enables analytics dashboards for smarter decision making. SQL Server and PostgreSQL give analysts speed and flexibility absent big data systems.
Internet of Things
The exponential growth of IoT data requires flexible databases. RDS allows effortlessly ingesting sensor and telemetry data from millions of endpoints.
Gaming
RDS keeps multiplayer gaming highly responsive under load while securing customer data like profiles and in-app purchases from cheating.
RDS Migration Considerations
Transitioning existing databases to RDS is straightforward but warrants planning. Work through the following process:
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Inventory Databases – Catalog all existing databases along with specs on engine types, hardware, storage and data sizes.
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Evaluate Workloads – Analyze typical performance patterns including IOPS, throughput, memory and storage consumption.
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Model RDS Environment – Architect the right combination of RDS instance types, storage configuration and engines.
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Transfer Data – Methodically move data sets into your RDS instance with minimal downtime using native backup/restore tools.
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Validate Performance – Test queries, run workloads and monitor database load and latency during validation.
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Cut Over – During maintenance window, switch application database connections from old servers to new RDS deployment.
Factor in migration complexity balancing benefits. Gradual transitions may make sense for large legacy databases. New apps lend themselves to direct cloud deployment.
When RDS May Not Fit
The managed nature of RDS provides huge benefits yet gives up some control. If you need maximum customization or open source flexibility, self-managed databases may be preferable.
For semi-structured data, RDS also does not fit as well as purpose-built NoSQL databases like DynamoDB. Similarly for large scale analytics, directly leveraging AWS big data tools like Redshift may suit better.
Hybrid scenarios mixing RDS and other technologies provide the best of both worlds. The ideal database technology depends on your workload patterns, data types and internal skill sets.
Wrapping Up
Amazon RDS delivers simplified database management so you can focus where it matters most – building better applications. Its flexibility and seamless integration across AWS makes RDS the ideal backbone for everything from mobile apps to mission critical ERP.
With the administrative pain points of managing databases eliminated, lean developer teams can achieve productivity and innovation at levels previously out of reach. Scaling capacity reliably keeps up with the pace of business across any workload.
The database landscape will continually evolve, but by leveraging RDS you place your trust in a service honed across millions of real world apps. No more maintaining the mundane so you can create the extraordinary. Just launch and leave the rest to RDS!
