Features

Easy, Managed Deployments

Amazon RDS for MySQL is designed for developers or businesses who require the full features and capabilities of a MySQL database, or who wish to migrate existing applications and tools that utilize a MySQL database. Since Amazon RDS for MySQL provides you direct access to familiar MySQL database software running on your own Amazon RDS DB Instance, your applications should work seamlessly.

• Pre-configured Parameters – Amazon RDS for MySQL deployments are pre-configured with a sensible set of parameters and settings appropriate for the DB Instance class you have selected. You can simply launch a MySQL Instance and connect your application within minutes without additional configuration. If you desire additional control, you can achieve it via DB Parameter Groups

• Monitoring and Metrics – Amazon RDS provides Amazon CloudWatch metrics for you DB Instance deployments at no additional charge. You can use the AWS Management Console to view key operational metrics for your DB Instance deployments, including compute/memory/storage capacity utilization, I/O activity, and DB Instance connections.

• DB Event Notifications – Amazon RDS provides Amazon SNS notifications via email or SMS for your DB Instance deployments. You can use the AWS Management Console or the Amazon RDS APIs to subscribe to over 40 different DB events associated with your Amazon RDS deployments.

• Automatic Software Patching – Amazon RDS will make sure that the MySQL software powering your deployment stays up-to-date with the latest patches. You can exert optional control over when and if your DB Instance is patched via DB Engine Version Management.

Fast, Predictable Performance

• Provisioned IOPS – You can provision up to 3TB storage and 30,000 IOPS per database instance. For a workload with 50% writes and 50% reads running on an m2.4xlarge instance, you can realize up to 12,500 IOPS for MySQL. However, by provisioning more than this limit, you may be able to achieve lower latency and higher throughput. Your actual realized IOPS may vary from the amount you provisioned based on your database workload, instance type, and database engine choice. Refer to the Factors That Affect Realized IOPS section of the Amazon RDS User Guide to learn more.

  You can convert from standard storage to Provisioned IOPS storage and get consistent throughput and low I/O latencies. You will encounter a short availability impact when doing so. You can independently scale IOPS (in increments of 1000) and storage on-the-fly with zero downtime. The ratio of IOPS provisioned to the storage requested (in GB) should be between 3 and 10. For example, for a database instance with 1000 GB of storage, you can provision from 3,000 to 10,000 IOPS. You can scale the IOPS up or down depending on factors such as seasonal variability of traffic to your applications.

  To learn more and get started with Amazon RDS Provisioned IOPS, please refer to the Working with Provisioned IOPS storage section of the Amazon RDS User Guide.

Backup & Recovery

• Automated Backups – Turned on by default, the automated backup feature of Amazon RDS enables point-in-time recovery for your DB Instance. Amazon RDS will backup your database and transaction logs and store both for a user-specified retention period. This allows you to restore your DB Instance to any second during your retention period, up to the last five minutes. Your automatic backup retention period can be configured to up to thirty five days.

• DB Snapshots – DB Snapshots are user-initiated backups of your DB Instance. These full database backups will be stored by Amazon RDS until you explicitly delete them. You can create a new DB Instance from a DB Snapshot whenever you desire.

Push-Button Scaling

• DB Instance Class – Using the Amazon RDS APIs or a few clicks of the AWS Management Console, you can scale the compute and memory resources powering your deployment up or down. Scaling operations typically complete within a handful of minutes.

• Storage and IOPS – As your storage requirements grow you can provision additional storage on-the-fly with zero downtime. If you are using RDS Provisioned IOPS, you can also scale the throughput of your DB Instance by specifying the IOPS rate from 1,000 IOPS to 10,000 IOPS in 1,000 IOPS increments and storage from 100GB and 3TB.

Replication

Amazon RDS provides two distinct but complementary replication features that can be used in conjunction to gain enhanced database availability, protect your latest database updates against unplanned outages, and scale beyond the capacity constraints of a single DB Instance for read-heavy database workloads.

• Multi-AZ Deployments – A deployment option for your production DB Instances that enhances database availability while protecting your latest database updates against unplanned outages. When you create or modify your DB Instance to run as a Multi-AZ deployment, Amazon RDS will automatically provision and manage a “standby” replica in a different Availability Zone (independent infrastructure in a physically separate location). Database updates are made concurrently on the primary and standby resources to prevent replication lag. In the event of planned database maintenance, DB Instance failure, or an Availability Zone failure, Amazon RDS will automatically failover to the up-to-date standby so that database operations can resume quickly without administrative intervention. Prior to failover you cannot directly access the standby, and it cannot be used to serve read traffic.

• Read Replicas – This replication feature makes it easy to elastically scale out beyond the capacity constraints of a single DB Instance for read-heavy database workloads. You can create one or more replicas of a given source DB Instance and serve high-volume application read traffic from multiple copies of your data, thereby increasing aggregate read throughput. Amazon RDS uses MySQL’s native replication to propagate changes made to a source DB Instance to any associated Read Replicas. Since Read Replicas leverage standard MySQL replication, they may fall behind their sources, and they are therefore not intended to be used for enhancing fault tolerance in the event of source DB Instance failure or Availability Zone failure.

Multi-AZ Deployments and Read Replicas use different underlying replication technologies suited to their respective purposes. However, you can use them together for reliable, scalable production deployments. Simply designate a Multi-AZ deployment as the source for one or more Read Replicas to gain both the availability and durability benefits of a Multi-AZ deployment and the scaling benefits of Read Replicas. To learn more about Multi-AZ deployments and Read Replicas, please visit our FAQs on the replication here .

Isolation and Security

Using Amazon VPC, you can isolate your DB Instances in your own virtual network, and connect to your existing IT infrastructure using industry-standard encrypted IPSec VPN. To learn more about Amazon RDS in VPC, refer to the Amazon RDS User Guide. In addition, using Amazon RDS, you can configure firewall settings and control network access to your DB Instances.

DB Instance Classes

Amazon RDS for MySQL currently supports the following DB Instance Classes:

• Micro DB Instance: 630 MB memory, Up to 2 ECU (for short periodic bursts), 64-bit platform, Low I/O Capacity, Provisioned IOPS Optimized: No
• Small DB Instance: 1.7 GB memory, 1 ECU (1 virtual core with 1 ECU), 64-bit platform, Moderate I/O Capacity, Provisioned IOPS Optimized: No
• Medium DB Instance: 3.75 GB memory, 2 ECU (1 virtual core with 2 ECU), 64-bit platform, Moderate I/O Capacity, Provisioned IOPS Optimized: No
• Large DB Instance: 7.5 GB memory, 4 ECUs (2 virtual cores with 2 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity, Provisioned IOPS Optimized: 500Mbps
• Extra Large DB Instance: 15 GB of memory, 8 ECUs (4 virtual cores with 2 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity, Provisioned IOPS Optimized: 1000Mbps
• High-Memory Extra Large DB Instance 17.1 GB memory, 6.5 ECU (2 virtual cores with 3.25 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity, Provisioned IOPS Optimized: No
• High-Memory Double Extra Large DB Instance: 34 GB of memory, 13 ECUs (4 virtual cores with 3,25 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity, Provisioned IOPS Optimized: No
• High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large DB Instance: 68 GB of memory, 26 ECUs (8 virtual cores with 3.25 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity, Provisioned IOPS Optimized: 1000Mbps

One ECU provides the equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor.

Pricing

Resources

Developer Resources

view all

• AWS Management Console
• WSDL
• Release Notes
• Documentation
• Sample Code and Libraries
• Developer Tools
• Articles & Tutorials
• DB Instance Sizing Guide
• Monitoring User Guide
• Amazon RDS Data Import Guide for MySQL
• Parameter Group Deployment Guide
• Community Forum

Additional Product Information

• FAQs
• Amazon Web Services Customer Agreement
• Service Health Dashboard

Related Services

• Amazon CloudWatch
• AWS Support

Detailed Description

Working with Amazon RDS for MySQL

Amazon RDS allows you to use the AWS Management Console or a simple set of web services APIs to create, delete and modify relational database instances (DB Instances). You can also control access and security for your instance(s) and manage your database backups and snapshots. For a full list of the available Amazon RDS APIs, please see the Amazon RDS API Guide. Some of the most commonly used APIs and their functionality are listed below:

• CreateDBInstance — Provision a new DB Instance, specifying DB Engine as MySQL, DB Instance class, storage capacity, DB Engine version (optional), the backup retention policy you wish to use, and whether you want to run the DB Instance as a Multi-AZ deployment. This one API call is all that’s needed to give you access to a running MySQL database, with the software pre-installed and the available resource capacity you request. You can also use the CreateDBInstanceReadReplica API to create a Read Replica for a given source DB Instance deployment.
• ModifyDBInstance — Modify settings for a running DB Instance. This lets you use a single API call to scale the resources available to your DB Instance in response to the load on your database, or change how it is automatically backed up and maintained on your behalf, or convert your DB Instance to or from a Multi-AZ deployment. You can also use this API to gain optional control over MySQL Version upgrades for your DB Instance – maintain compatibility with specific MySQL versions, test new versions with your application before deploying in production, and perform version upgrades on your own terms and timelines.
• DeleteDBInstance — Delete a running DB Instance. With Amazon RDS, you can terminate your DB Instance at any time and pay only for the resources you used.
• CreateDBSnapshot — Generate a snapshot of your DB Instance. You can restore your DB Instance to these user-created snapshots at any point, even to reinstate a previously deleted DB Instance.
• RestoreDBInstanceToPointInTIme — Create a new DB Instance from a point-in-time backup. You can restore to any point within the retention period you specified, usually up to the last five minutes of your database’s usage.

Migrating to Amazon RDS for MySQL

If your application already relies on a MySQL database, importing data to Amazon RDS is simple. In general, to migrate your data to Amazon RDS you simply:

• Create a DB Instance with the compute, storage capacity and access controls required.
• For smaller databases (e.g. up to 1 GB), extract the data with mysqldump and pipe it directly into Amazon RDS. Below is an example showing the “acme” database being copied to Amazon RDS:

mysqldump acme | mysql --host=hostname --user=username --password acme

• For larger databases, build your database schema in Amazon RDS, then convert the data into a flat file and import it into your DB Instance using the mysqlimport utility. Below is an example showing the “acme” database being copied to Amazon RDS:

mysqlimport --local --compress --user=username --password --host=hostname --fields-terminated-by=',' Acme sales.part_*

• Update the database connection string in your application config file.

For more information on importing data into Amazon RDS, see the Amazon RDS Data Import Guide for MySQL

Paying for What You Use

You will be charged at the end of each month for the Amazon RDS resources you actually consume. Once a DB Instance you have created is available for connection, you will be charged for each hour your DB Instance is running (e.g. $0.105/hr for a Small DB Instance). Each DB Instance will run until termination, which occurs when you issue an API call to delete the DB Instance, or in the event of an instance failure. Partial DB Instance hours consumed are billed as full hours. In addition to DB Instance hours, you are also billed for your monthly storage, IO requests, and backups. If you scale your storage capacity within the billing period, your bill will be pro-rated accordingly.

Getting Started

The best way to understand Amazon RDS is to review the Getting Started Guide, part of our Technical Documentation. Once you are ready to create your own DB Instance and start building applications, you can use the AWS Management Console or Amazon RDS APIs to launch a DB Instance in minutes. If you wish to run more than 20 DB Instances, please complete this form and we will promptly respond to your request.

Intended Usage and Restrictions

Your use of this service is subject to the Amazon Web Services Customer Agreement.