AWS Database Blog

Category: Amazon RDS

Create a unit testing framework for PostgreSQL using the pgTAP extension

pgTAP (PostgreSQL Test Anything Protocol) is a unit testing framework that empowers developers to write and run tests directly within the database. In this post, we explore how to leverage the pgTAP extension for unit testing on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition database, helping you build robust and reliable database applications.

Scaling Amazon RDS for MySQL performance for Careem’s digital platform on AWS

Careem powers rides, deliveries, and payments across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. As Careem grew, so did its data infrastructure challenges. Their monolithic 270 TB Amazon RDS for MySQL database consisting of one writer and five read replicas— experienced performance issues due to increased storage utilization, slow queries, high replica lag, and increased Amazon RDS cost. In this post, we provide a step-by-step breakdown of how Careem successfully implemented a phased data purging strategy, improving DB performance while addressing key technical challenges.

Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights applied in real scenarios

In this post, we show how you can use Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights for troubleshooting your Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora resources. CloudWatch Database Insights serves as a database observability solution offering a tailored experience for DevOps engineers, application developers, and database administrators. This tool is designed to accelerate database troubleshooting processes and address issues across entire database fleets, enhancing overall operational efficiency.

Perform OS upgrades for Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server CEV with Multi-AZ

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) Custom for SQL Server gives you enhanced control through OS shell-level access and database administrator privileges. With this control comes the shared responsibility model, which requires you to manage your own OS and database patching. Operating system (OS) changes made after instance creation aren’t persistent. To maintain OS-level customizations, […]

Understanding transaction visibility in PostgreSQL clusters with read replicas

On April 29, 2025, Jepsen published a report about transaction visibility behavior in Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Multi-AZ clusters. We appreciate Jepsen’s thorough analysis and would like to provide additional context about this behavior, which exists both in Amazon RDS and community PostgreSQL. In this post, we dive into the specifics of the issue to provide further clarity, discuss what classes of architectures it might affect, share workarounds, and highlight our ongoing commitment to improving community PostgreSQL in all areas, including correctness.

Migrate SQL Server user databases from Amazon EC2 to Amazon RDS Custom using Amazon EBS snapshots

In this post, we present a practical approach to one of the most significant challenges organizations face when adopting Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server: migrating large datasets from SQL Server on Amazon EC2 to Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server efficiently and cost-effectively. By using SQL Server’s native detach and attach method combined with EBS snapshots, you can migrate your databases without requiring Amazon S3 or AWS DMS.

Working with OEM Agent software for Amazon RDS for Oracle

Amazon RDS for Oracle supports specific versions of the OEM Agent. Amazon recently released OEM Management Agent version 13.5.0.0.v2 for Amazon RDS for Oracle databases. OEM Agent version 13.5.0.0.v2 requires Oracle Management Server (OMS) version 13.5.0.23 at the minimum. In this post we explore critical scenarios affecting OEM Agents on Amazon RDS for Oracle Database instances and outline essential considerations for users.

Improve PostgreSQL performance using the pgstattuple extension

In this post, we explore the pgstattuple extension in depth; what insights it offers, how to use it to diagnose issues in Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for PostgreSQL, and best practices for harnessing its capabilities.

Using StatsD for monitoring Oracle databases running on Amazon RDS or Amazon EC2

Monitoring databases is essential in large IT environments to prevent potential issues from becoming major problems that can result in data loss or downtime. Having custom dashboards and alarm-based monitoring for the database can help in analyzing historical metrics patterns and improve database availability by alerting users of any abnormal threshold breaches. In this post, we show you how to set up monitoring for your Oracle database using StatsD.

Transition a pivot query that includes dynamic columns from SQL Server to PostgreSQL

When assisting customers with migrating their workloads from SQL Server to PostgreSQL, we often encounter a scenario where the PIVOT function is used extensively for generating dynamic reports. In this post, we show you how to use the crosstab function, provided by PostgreSQL’s tablefunc extension, to implement functionality similar to SQL Server’s PIVOT function, offering greater flexibility.