You can set the binary logging format to row-based for MySQL version 5.6 and later. By default, replication is set to mixed-format (which includes both row-based and statement-based replication), which should meet the requirements of most use cases. The MySQL documentation offers more information about the difference between mixed-format and row-based replication.
Amazon Blue/Green Deployments FAQs
Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments are available in all AWS Regions (excluding AWS China Regions) and AWS GovCloud Regions.
Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments allow you to make safer, simpler, and faster database changes, such as major or minor version upgrades, schema changes, instance scaling, engine parameter changes, and maintenance updates.
You will incur the same price for running your workloads on green instances as you do for blue instances. The cost of running on blue and green instances include our current standard pricing for db.instances, cost of storage, cost of read/write I/Os, and any enabled features, such as cost of backups and Amazon RDS Performance Insights. Effectively, you are paying approximately 2x the cost of running workloads on db.instance for the lifespan of the blue-green-deployment.
In Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments, the blue environment is your current production environment. The green environment is your staging environment that will become your new production environment after switchover.
When Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments initiate a switchover, it blocks writes to both the blue and green environments, until switchover is complete. During switchover, the staging environment—or green environment—catches up with the blue environment, ensuring data is consistent between the blue and green environments. Once the blue and green environment are in complete sync, Blue/Green Deployments promote the green environment as the new blue environment by redirecting traffic to the green environment. Blue/Green Deployments are designed to enable writes on the green environment after switch-over is complete, ensuring zero data loss during the switchover process.
Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments do not delete your old production environment. If needed, you can access it for additional validations and performance/regression testing. If you no longer need the old production environment, you can delete it. Standard billing charges apply on old production instances until you delete them.
Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments switchover guardrails block writes on your blue and green environments until your green environment catches up before switching over. Blue/Green Deployments also perform health checks of your primary and replicas in your blue and green environments. They also perform replication health checks, for example, to see if replication has stopped or if there are errors. They detect long running transactions between your blue and green environments. You can specify your maximum tolerable downtime, as low as 30 seconds, and if you have an ongoing transaction that exceeds this your switchover will time out.
No, Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments do not support Amazon RDS Proxy, cross-Region read replicas, or cascaded read replicas.
No, at this time you cannot use Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments to rollback changes.
Amazon RDS Optimized Writes FAQs
Q: How does Amazon RDS Optimized Writes write data files differently than MySQL?
MySQL protects users from data loss by writing data in 16KiB pages in memory twice to durable storage—first to the “doublewrite buffer” and then to table storage. Amazon RDS Optimized Writes write your 16KiB data pages directly to your data files reliably and durably in one step using the Torn Write Prevention feature of the AWS Nitro System.
Q: Which RDS for MySQL database versions support Amazon RDS Optimized Writes?
Amazon RDS Optimized Writes are available for MySQL major version 8.0.30 and higher.
Q: Which database instance types support Amazon RDS Optimized Writes? In what Regions are they available?
Amazon RDS Optimized Writes are available in db.r6i and db.r5b instances. They are available in all Regions where these instances are available, excluding AWS China Regions.
Q: When should I use Amazon RDS Optimized Writes?
All Amazon RDS for MySQL users should implement Amazon RDS Optimized Writes for up to 2x improved write transaction throughput. Applications with write-heavy workloads, such as digital payments, financial trading, and online gaming applications will find this feature especially helpful.
Q: Are Amazon RDS Optimized Writes supported on Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition?
No. Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition already avoids the use of the “doublewrite buffer.” Instead, Aurora replicates data six ways across three Availability Zones (AZs) and uses a quorum-based approach to durably write data and correctly read it thereafter.
Q: Can customers convert their existing Amazon RDS databases to use Amazon RDS Optimized Writes?
At this time, this initial release does not support enabling Amazon RDS Optimized Writes for your existing database instances even if the instance class supports Optimized Writes.
Q: How much are Amazon RDS Optimized Writes?
Amazon RDS Optimized Writes are available to RDS for MySQL customers at no additional cost.
Amazon RDS Optimized Reads FAQs
Q: How does Amazon RDS Optimized Reads speed up query performance?
Workloads that use temporary objects in MySQL for query processing benefit from Amazon RDS Optimized Reads. Optimized Reads place temporary objects on the database instance's NVMe-based instance storage, instead of the Amazon Elastic Block Store volume. This helps to speed up complex query processing by up to 50%.
Q: Which RDS for MySQL database versions support Amazon RDS Optimized Reads?
Amazon RDS Optimized Reads are available for RDS for MySQL on MySQL versions 8.0.28 and higher.
Q: Which database instance types support Amazon RDS Optimized Reads? In what regions is it available?
Amazon RDS Optimized Reads are available in all Regions where db.r5d, db.m5d, db.r6gd, db.m6gd, X2idn, and X2iedn instances are available. For more information, see the Amazon RDS DB instance classes documentation.
Q: When should I use Amazon RDS Optimized Reads?
Customers should use Amazon RDS Optimized Reads when they have workloads that require complex queries; general purpose analytics; or require intricate groups, sorts, hash aggregations, high-load joins, and Common Table Expressions (CTEs). These use cases result in the creation of temporary tables, allowing Optimized Reads to speed up your workload’s query processing.
Q: Can customers convert their existing Amazon RDS databases to use Amazon RDS Optimized Reads?
Yes, customers can convert their existing Amazon RDS database to use Amazon RDS Optimized Reads by moving your workload to an Optimized Read-enabled instance. Optimized Reads is also available by default on all supported instance classes. If you’re running your workload on db.r5d, db.m5d, db.r6gd, db.m6gd, X2idn, and X2iedn instances, you’re already benefiting from Optimized Reads.

Amazon RDS is free to try. Pay only for what you use. There is no minimum fee.