RDS, an abbreviation for Relational Database Service, is an offering from AWS. Amazon Web Services RDS makes development more accessible, convenient, and on-the-fly with pay-as-you-go pricing.
RDS is also simple to use, scale, and replicate. Businesses do not need to worry about infrastructure, core operating systems, or upgrades. AWS manages everything from top to bottom, with guaranteed quality of service.
Before the advent of the cloud, hardware failure and data loss were common occurrences. Companies used to host their data centers and manage the applications and servers.
When cloud businesses stepped in, everything got to a whole different level. All companies have to do now is write code and host it in their cloud data center. The software business skyrocketed with minimal maintenance, failure, or data loss costs.
The cloud, especially AWS, brought a revolution in the software industry, not only in hosting but also in how companies store their data. A database is a vital component of every software application.
A relational database is a form of database that stores data in rows and columns in tables. Amazon RDS helps you manage an industry-standard relational database that is cost-effective and scalable.
It provides customers options for more straightforward relational database setup, operation, and scaling in the cloud. With the introduction of AWS RDS, it is now feasible to have Amazon RDS manage all database management responsibilities. Furthermore, it has demonstrated success in other sectors that dramatically lower the size of the DBA staff.
In this article, you will learn what AWS RDS is and why you should be using AWS RDS as a database in your upcoming project application. So, let’s dive right into it.
What is AWS RDS?
Amazon Web Services RDS is a distributed relational database service from Amazon. It’s a “cloud” internet service that facilitates database setup, operation, automatic updates, backups, point-in-time recovery, and scalability.
A single API call to the AWS control plane scales on-demand storage and processing resources. AWS’s managed service doesn’t provide an SSH connection to the virtual machine.
With Amazon RDS, you can set up and manage databases in the cloud. A relational cloud database is set up, run, organized, and scaled by an Amazon RDS cloud administrator.
In minutes, you can use RDS APIs or command-line tools to connect to a whole database instance. With a single API request, you can change the amount of processing power and storage space and take consistent snapshots of your database anytime.
How does AWS RDS help?
#1. Supports multiple databases
Amazon RDS supports six comparable databases.
- Amazon Aurora: A compatible and economical MySQL and PostgreSQL relational database designed on the cloud to monitor the performance and availability of traditional databases and cost-effectively.
- PostgreSQL: Developers favor PostgreSQL, an open-source relational database. Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL works like a regular database.
- MySQL: Amazon RDS simplifies MySQL systems’ implementation, maintenance, and expansion in the AWS cloud. MySQL is the most accepted open-source relational database in the world.
- MariaDB: MariaDB is an open-source relational database. The original creators of MYSQL created MariaDB. Amazon RDS supports all versions of the MariaDB server.
- Oracle: Amazon RDS for Oracle streamlines Oracle cloud installations and handles provisioning, backups, software patching, monitoring, and hardware scaling. There are two licensing models for running Amazon RDS for Oracle – “License Included” and “Bring-Your-Own-License”. Purchasing an Oracle license is not required for the license included version as AWS has licensed Oracle Database Software.
- Microsoft SQL Server: Microsoft-powered relational database management system supports numerous versions of SQL server (2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2019) and Amazon RDS Express, Web, Standard, and Enterprise.
#2. Create web and mobile applications
High availability, throughput, and scalability of storage let applications expand. Utilize the flexible pay-per-use pricing to work on various programs and applications.
#3. Get rid of outdated databases
By migrating to Amazon RDS, you may eliminate prohibitively expensive and limited commercial databases. When switching to Aurora, you get commercial databases’ scalability, performance, and availability at one-tenth the cost.
How does AWS RDS differ from a standalone installation?
In any standalone installation, one hosts the application on a server and controls the database either on-premises or at a data center. Config controls, enhanced security, vendor lock-in, and speed with any conventional cloud database provider are concerns.
With AWS RDS, all settings are governed by the Security Group while adhering to AWS’s ordinary database usage policy.
Independent installation has many disadvantages.
Scalability: Any standalone database is installed on a provided infrastructure or hardware and is not easily expandable. Frequently, these are not scalable.
If a database approaches a bottleneck, scaling it up is a time-consuming operation. There is also no assurance that the data will persist.
Adaptability: These are not platform-independent, and the behavior of the database tends to vary from operating system to operating system. The application takes a massive hit if the database faces compatibility issues.
Resource-consuming: Occasionally, a standalone will fail to apply critical updates, leading to database corruption or increased resource use.
Operational costs: Undoubtedly, database management would increase the operational costs associated with backup, replication, and security.
With all these disadvantages, manual database installation and operation require technical expertise. It requires a skilled team of engineers. Therefore, AWS RDS is always superior to standalone databases.
Features of AWS RDS
#1. Reduces Maintenance Overhead
The management console, Amazon RDS command-line interface, and easy API requests are the three essential aspects that allow enterprises to access the production relational database.
AWS RDS will upgrade the relational database software powering your deployment with the most recent patches, so you do not need to install the latest updates.
Amazon RDS evaluates database instances, setup, and user metrics to give reliable results and provides best-fit advice on the database engine, its versions, storage, networking, and other aspects.
AWS takes care of timely updates and offers enhanced monitoring and performance insight to debug and troubleshoot application issues.
#2. Scalability and Manageability
Amazon RDS makes it possible to frequently scale the database’s compute and storage capacity in minutes, with no downtime. It is possible to boost the RAM from 32vCPU to 244 GB.
Amazon RDS allows for increased storage scalability as storage requirements increase. There are engines such as Amazon Aurora, Oracle, MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL that provide scaling up to 64 TB of storage and 16 TB for the SQL server.
Using Amazon Cloud Watch or the AWS management dashboard, AWS RDS enables users to observe diverse operational metrics at no additional charge.
Amazon SNS enables Amazon RDS to alert users through email or text messages about database events.
#3. High Availability and Durability
AWS RDS allows a point-in-time recovery feature for your database if you want automatic database backups. There is a maximum backup retention period of 35 days.
Users can create snapshots of their Amazon S3-stored database instances. These database snapshots remain in S3 until the user deletes them directly. It can be utilized to establish a new model as needed.
Amazon RDS is synced with multi-AZ (Availability Zone) deployments to provide high availability and durability database instances.
#4. Security
Using Amazon RDS, enterprises may encrypt their databases for enhanced security and authenticated access using Amazon Keys.
Using Amazon VPC, customers may now operate databases on their virtual network, with easy firewall configuration and network access settings.
AWS Identity and Access Management may now regulate AWS RDS activities and particular implementations.
#5. Cost-Effectiveness
When utilizing Amazon RDS, users will only pay for what they use, nothing more, with no additional upfront or monthly charges.
Amazon RDS also offers ‘Reserved Instances’ to reserve DB instances for a 1- or 3-year term at a substantial price reduction.
AWS RDS makes it easier and more affordable to use database instances for development and testing. Users may run the database whenever they want for up to seven days.
Learning materials for AWS RDS
Are you prepared to explore Amazon RDS? Explore the courses below, taught by professionals with real-world expertise, and begin advancing your AWS RDS abilities immediately.
If you are curious about AWS databases and want to be an expert on database technology, we highly recommend you sign up for the AWS Certified Database Specialty Exam.
Here are the resources that can help you prepare for the exam.
AWS Certified Speciality Course by Whizlabs.
Ultimate AWS Certified Database Speciality by Udemy.
Conclusion
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) heralds a new age of Cloud Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), which will assist businesses in achieving more operational resilience. It is made possible by the vast number of features and benefits it offers over the long run.
The simplicity with which AWS RDS can be used is one of the most critical aspects of this product. Amazon RDS simplifies relational database management tasks, including patching, migration, backup, and recovery.
It removes the need for database administrators to get familiar with new database management tools to manage multiple database instances. AWS RDS is distinguished by several critical qualities, including replication, high-performance storage, and failure detection.
