Get started with Amazon Aurora
Amazon Aurora: Learning series introduction
Amazon Aurora is a MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible relational database built for the cloud. It combines the performance and availability of a commercial grade database with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of an open source database. Amazon Aurora makes it easier, faster, and cost-effective to manage your data and build scalable, reliable, and high performance applications. We’ve curated a selection of step-by-step tutorials to help get you started with Aurora and introduce you to more advanced concepts including Global Database, Serverless, Backtrack, and more.
Amazon Aurora tutorials
Get started with Amazon Aurora with these tutorials.
Create a high-availability database cluster with Amazon Aurora
Step-by-step instructions to configure an Amazon Aurora cluster to create a high-availability database. A high-availability database consists of compute nodes replicated across multiple availability zones (AZs) to gain increased read scalability and failover protection. This tutorial uses Amazon Aurora with MySQL compatibility, but you can follow a similar process for the PostgreSQL edition.
Migrate from RDS MySQL to Aurora in near zero downtime
In this tutorial, you will learn how to migrate from Amazon RDS MySQL to Amazon Aurora MySQL with minimal downtime. You'll also learn how to use RDS Read Replicas to migrate from RDS MySQL to Aurora MySQL, how to promote a read replica to become the new standalone Aurora MySQL DB cluster and finally how to connect your application to the new DB cluster.
Auto scaling a MySQL database to meet fluctuating application demands
Learn how to configure Amazon Aurora for MySQL to automatically scale by adding or removing read replicas to meet the fluctuating demands of your applications. This tutorial is not within the free tier but will cost less than $1 when following the step-by-step instructions, including terminating your resources after finishing the tutorial.
Fast database cloning & backtracking to accelerate application development
In this tutorial, you will learn how to clone an Aurora database cluster for development and testing and how to enable and use backtracking to “rewind” the cluster to a specific point in time. Cloning an Aurora cluster is useful to assess the impact of changes to your database and when performing workload intensive operations—such as exporting data or running analytical queries. This tutorial is NOT free tier eligible, but will cost you less than $1 when following these step-by-step instructions, including terminating your resources after finishing the tutorial
Configure and Connect to Serverless MySQL Database
In this tutorial, you will learn how to configure and connect to Amazon Aurora Serverless. Aurora Serverless starts up, shuts down, or scales up or down your MySQL database with no manual intervention. You only pay for the capacity you use on a per second basis. This tutorial is not within the free tier, but will cost less than $1 when following the step-by-step instructions, including terminating your resources after finishing the tutorial.
Building Serverless applications with Amazon Aurora Serverless
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a serverless message processing application with Amazon Aurora Serverless for PostgreSQL. Learn to create an Aurora Serverless database, use data APIs to connect to an Amazon Lambda function that consumes messages from Amazon SNS, and stores messages in an Aurora Serverless database instance.
Fast cross-region disaster recovery and low-latency global reads with Amazon Aurora Global Database
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create an Amazon Aurora Global Database deployment that spans multiple AWS regions and replicates your data with no impact on performance. Aurora Global Database provides disaster recovery and enables low latency global reads and high local performance. This tutorial is not within the free tier. It will cost you less than $1 provided you follow the steps in the tutorial and terminate your resources at the close of the tutorial.
Set up shared database connections with Amazon RDS Proxy
In this tutorial, you learn how to create an Amazon RDS Proxy and connect it to an existing Amazon RDS MySQL Database. Amazon RDS Proxy is a fully managed, highly available database proxy for Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora that makes applications more scalable, more resilient to database failures, and more secure. This tutorial focuses on how to use RDS Proxy on RDS MySQL but you can follow the same steps to connect RDS Proxy to Aurora.
Perform sentiment analysis with Amazon Aurora ML integration
In this tutorial, you learn how to create an Aurora PostgresSQL database, enable integration with Amazon Comprehend, and use Comprehend to perform sentiment analysis based on records in the database table. After this tutorial, you should be able to use Amazon Aurora machine learning which enables you to add ML-based predictions to applications via the familiar SQL programming language without having to learn separate tools or prior machine learning experience.
Leverage Amazon Aurora features for your workload
Aurora Global Database
Create a database that spans multiple AWS Regions with low-latency reads, global disaster recovery and no impact on performance.
Amazon Aurora Serverless
Start up, shut down, and scale up or down capacity based on your application’s needs with Aurora Serverless.
Amazon RDS Proxy
Improve your database efficiency and make your application scalable, more resilient, and more secure, in just a few clicks.
Get the most out of Amazon Aurora
Read Replicas
Elastically scale out beyond the capacity constraints of a single DB instance for read-heavy database workloads.
Multi-AZ Configuration
Enable Multi-AZ configurations on your production workloads for a more resilient DR strategy, ensuring zero data-loss and automated backups.
Performance Insights
Quickly assess load on your database and take faster action with an easy-to-use performance dashboard.
Featured Amazon Aurora popular re:Invent sessions
In this video, you get an overview of Aurora and learn about recently announced features, such as enhancements to Global Database, snapshot export, and Microsoft Active Directory integration. This session also covers how to get started using Aurora to support existing and new applications.
One Amazon Aurora's key component is its innovative storage system that is optimized for database workloads and purpose-built to take advantage of modern cloud technology. In this video, hear directly from the team that built Amazon Aurora’s storage system. They detail how the system is designed, how it works, and what you need to know to get the most out of it.
Amazon Aurora Serverless is an on-demand, auto scaling configuration of Amazon Aurora that automatically adjusts database capacity based on application demand. With Amazon Aurora Serverless v2, you can now scale database workloads instantly from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of transactions per second and adjust capacity in fine-grained increments to provide just the right amount of database resources. This video dives deep into Aurora Serverless v2 and shows how it can help you operate even the most demanding database workloads worry-free.
Quick resources

AWS Online Tech Talks
Register for live or view on-demand webinars and virtual workshops produced by the AWS databases team.

AWS Databases Migration Guide
Read up on the best practices for moving to the cloud with AWS Migration.

AWS Database Blog
Read the latest posts on the AWS Database blog.

Amazon Aurora Ascendant
How we designed a cloud-native relational database-- Werner Vogels (Amazon.com CTO)
Learn more about Amazon Aurora pricing