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The Ultimate Guide To

AWS Database Services

Migrate database investments to the cloud like the pros

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 Of Amazon’s 212 cloud computing services, fifteen are purpose-
Executive built database engines. In this eBook, we focus on eight AWS
Summary database services: Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora, Amazon
DynamoDB, Amazon DocumentDB, Amazon ElasticCache,
Amazon Neptune, Amazon Timestream, and Amazon Quantum
Ledger Database (QLDB).

We offer a review of the functions,

features, capabilities, use cases of each
of these services, and how to migrate
existing databases to AWS.

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Table of 1 AWS Database Services Map

Contents
2 AWS RDS Deep Dive: Running RDBMS on Amazon

3 Migrating Database Workloads to AWS

4 Databases on AWS: Managed or Self Managed?

5 Summary

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 1

AWS Database
Service Map

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 AWS Relational Database Services AWS NoSQL Database Services
Types
Relational databases store data in tabular form Relational databases are less suitable for use
of AWS with columns and rows, and can be queried cases requiring very high performance or

Database using the SQL query language.

Use cases for relational databases on Amazon

dynamic scalability. NoSQL databases avoid
storing data in tables, allowing them to distribute

Services include ERP, CRM, finance data, transactions, and process data more efficiently.

and data warehousing Use cases for NoSQL databases on Amazon

The primary Amazon services providing include real-time bidding, content management

relational databases are: systems, caching, and real-time streaming.

• Amazon Aurora The primary NoSQL Amazon services are:

• Amazon RDS • Amazon DynamoDB

• Amazon Redshift • Amazon DocumentDB

• Amazon ElastiCache for Memcached

• Amazon ElastiCache for Redis

• Amazon Neptune

• Amazon Timestream

• Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

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 Amazon RDS is a managed, relational database service that includes six different database options.
Amazon These include AWS Oracle, PostgreSQL, AWS MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server, and Amazon Aurora. You can

RDS
manage these database engines from a centralized management console, a command-line interface, or
via API calls. When using this service, many administrative tasks are automated, including database setup,
hardware provisioning, backup, and updating.

Use cases of Amazon RDS include:

Web and mobile applications eCommerce applications Mobile and online games
provides the scalability, provides flexibility, security, provides high-throughput and
availability, and throughput and PCI compliance needed for availability to ensure that games
needed for enterprise-grade eCommerce. remain online and responsive
applications. to players.

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 Amazon Aurora is a fully managed relational database engine designed specifically for AWS. It is MySQL
Amazon and PostgreSQL compatible with minor changes to your source database. Aurora includes features for

Aurora
self-healing, fault tolerance, point-in-time recovery, and continuous backup.

Use cases for Amazon Aurora include:

Enterprise applications Software as a Service (SaaS) Web and mobile gaming

offerings applications
including customer relationship
management and enterprise including those requiring including those requiring massive
resource planning solutions. significant storage and storage, high throughput, and
compute scalability. high-availability.

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 Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed, document and key-value database. It includes features for multi-
Amazon master, multi-region use along with built-in security, automated backup and restoration, and in-memory

DynamoDB
caching. DynamoDB can provide support for serverless web apps, microservices, and mobile backends.

Use cases of Amazon DynamoDB include:

Ad tech Gaming Retail

including clickstreams, user including leaderboards, player including online shopping
events, and user profiles. data stores, and game states. carts, inventory tracking, and
customer profiles.

Banking and finance Media and entertainment Software as a service (SaaS)

including event-driven including digital rights including content metadata
transaction processing, management, user data stores, stores, metadata caches, and
fraud detection, and change and metadata stores. relationship graph data stores.
data capture.

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 Amazon DocumentDB is a fully managed document database service. It is scalable, highly-available, and
Amazon compatible with MongoDB. With it, you can store, index, and query JSON files. With DocumentDB, you can

DocumentDB
scale your compute and storage resources separately for maximum flexibility.

Use cases of Amazon DocumentDB include:

Content and catalog Profile management Mobile and web applications

management
including user preferences, including applications that
including online publications, authentication profiles, and demand high-performance and
point-of-sale terminals, and online transactions. low-latency.
digital archives.

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 Amazon ElastiCache is a fully managed, in-memory data store service. It is compatible with both Redis
Amazon and Memcached. ElastiCache automates setup, hardware provisioning, configuration, monitoring,

ElastiCache
updates, and backup and recovery processes. With ElastiCache you can scale both write and memory
processes through sharding and data replication.

Use cases of Amazon ElastiCache include:

Session stores Gaming Geospatial services

for web applications and sites. including leaderboards including real-time mapping
and chats. and location.

Real-time analytics

including Internet of things

(IoT) sensor processing and
AI applications.

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 Amazon Neptune is a fully managed graph database service. It enables you to create and run applications
Amazon using highly-connected data sets. It supports the storage of massive relationship data sets with low-

Neptune
latency access. Neptune supports a variety of graph models and languages, including RDF, SPARQL, and
Gremlin. It includes features for point-in-time recovery, read replicas, and continuous backup.

Use cases for Amazon Neptune include:

Social networking Recommendation engines Fraud detection

including user profiles and including storage of customer including fraud related
content prioritization. contacts, purchase histories, to overlapping email
and customer preferences. addresses, IP addresses, or
credit card numbers.

Knowledge graphs Life sciences Network and IT operations

including product catalogs including disease models, gene including creating network
or wikis. patterning, or research catalogs. visibility, monitoring, or
forensic analysis.

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 Amazon Timestream is a fully managed, time-series database service. It enables you to store, process,
Amazon and analyze up to 1,000X better query performance at 90% lower cost, compared to relational

Timestream
databases offered on AWS. Timestream provides automatic hardware provisioning, updates, setup and
configuration, and data tiering.

Use cases for Amazon Timestream include:

DevOps IoT applications Application monitoring

supports performance supports IoT analytics for supports clickstream
monitoring and network the implementation of smart monitoring and analysis.
optimization. devices, such as thermostats
or motion sensors.

Industrial telemetry

including industrial
equipment monitoring and
fleet management.

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 Amazon (QLDB) is a fully managed, serverless ledger database service. You can use it to track application
Amazon data changes with a verifiable history. With QLDB, you can avoid the need to build custom ledger

Quantum
applications and associated verification tools. You can query data in QLDB using a SQL-like API.

Use cases for Amazon QLDB include:

Ledger
Database Finance Insurance HR and payroll
including credit and including claim including employee
(QLDB) debit transactions. transactions and auditing. benefits, performance
histories, or certifications.

Retail and supply chain

management

including batch tracking,

product recall processes,
and shipping.

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 According to Forrester, Amazon offers the largest variety of DBaaS offerings of all major cloud
What Is providers. This includes support for deployments of most complexities and for a growing number

Unique
of database engines. AWS also offers robust support for both homogeneous and heterogeneous
database migrations, flexible resource provisioning, built-in security, and options for high-availability

About AWS and replication.

Below are two customer use cases that can give you an idea of how AWS databases are used for real
Database world deployments.

Offerings?
Airbnb Duolingo
Airbnb uses the Amazon Relational Database Duolingo runs solutions based on Amazon
Service (RDS) MySQL engine. The company DynamoDB to support personalized language
migrated to the cloud with only 15 minutes of learning content for up to six billion lessons
downtime. RDS enabled them to reduce time per month, with 24k reads and 3k writes each
spent on administrative tasks, like scaling and month. DynamoDB provides high-concurrency
data replication. Later, the company moved to access to the data. Duolingo also uses Amazon
Amazon Aurora to boost performance. ElastiCache, AWS Aurora, and Amazon Redshift.

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 2

AWS RDS Deep Dive

Running RDBMS on Amazon

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 AWS Relational Database Service (RDS) is a managed service that lets you orchestrate relational
How Does databases in AWS.

Amazon It supports the following database engines:

RDS Work?

MySQL Aurora Oracle

MariaDB PostgreSQL Microsoft SQL Server

RDS manages provisioning, failure detection, repair, backup, recovery, and patching for you. You have
the option of selecting from several instance types, including memory, performance, or IO-optimized.

You can deploy RDS across multiple availability zones and can use the AWS Database Migration Service
to migrate your existing databases.

You should be aware that RDS has size limits, which you can overcome by tiering some of the data to
Amazon S3.

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 Option 1 Option 2
MySQL or
Managed MySQL/PostgreSQL Amazon Aurora
PostgreSQL You can create a classic MySQL or PostgreSQL Aurora is a database engine developed by

on RDS database in Amazon RDS by following these steps: Amazon, which is compatible with MySQL
and PostgreSQL. It is based on fault-tolerant,
1. From the RDS console, select a Region and
click Create database. distributed, and self-healing storage resources,
and scales up to 64TB per database instance.
2. Select the MySQL/PostgreSQL DB engine.
You can create an Amazon Aurora database
3. Select license model, MySQL version, Amazon
cluster using a similar process to classic MySQL/
instance type, storage type, and attached storage.
PostgreSQL, except:
4. Supply credentials for your new DB instance.
• Select Aurora as the database engine
5. Configure network and security settings
• You cannot choose a specific instance size
6. Create the database instance
• Aurora only supports:

• MySQL versions 5.6, 5.7, 8.0

• PostgreSQL versions 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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 Option 3
MySQL or
Self-Managed
PostgreSQL You can self-manage MySQL or PostgreSQL on AWS by using two additional services—

on RDS Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) and Amazon EC2.

To set this up, you need to first install and deploy your PostgreSQL database on an EC2
instance. You can simplify the process of setting up the deployment by using Amazon
Machine Images as templates for your EC2 instances.

You can create your own Amazon You can leverage ready-made AMIs with
Machine Image (AMI) and use it as a PostgreSQL preinstalled and pre-configured.
template for your EC2 instances. Some AMIs come with high availability built in.

The next step is to attach an EBS volume, which provides pluggable and durable storage.
Once you set up your self-managed database, you need to continuously maintain and monitor
its operation.

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 Option 1 Option 2
Oracle on
Managed Oracle on RDS Self-Managed on EC2
RDS You can run Oracle on RDS, with automated Hosting Oracle on EC2 means self-managing
provisioning, updating, monitoring, backups, your database. You have full control over
hardware scaling, and multi-AZ replication. You the setup and configuration but you are also
can use it with either Provisioned IOPS storage or responsible for all of the maintenance. This
General Purpose (SSD) storage. option is similar to hosting your database
on-premises. When using EC2, you need
Benefits of this option:
to provision EC2 instances, storage, and
• Focusing on using your database without all the
networking resources.
maintenance
Benefits of this option:
• Maximizing high-availability and synchronous
• Maintaining control over your environment
replication
and operating systems
• Avoiding upfront license investments; RDS
• Large databases that exceed 80% or more of
includes the cost of the Oracle license in your
the RDS instance size
hourly payments
• Running Oracle Real Application
• Hands-free backup management
Clusters (RACs)

• Fast, high volume migrations

• Preserving database and application

IP addresses

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 3

Migrating Database Workloads

to AWS

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 Here are some advantages that cause businesses to migrate to AWS:
Why Do
Businesses Cost

Migrate to AWS is famous for its pay-per-use pricing, but in addition, it provides a large variety of
services that allow you to consume exactly the level of services you need, to control costs.
AWS?
Scalability

AWS offers infinite scalability and many ways to manage that scalability, from auto-scaling
on EC2 instances to containerized deployments, serverless functions, and more.

Agility

AWS provides very comprehensive automation capabilities, integrates with DevOps workflows
and allows teams to instantly spin up development, test and production environments.

High availability and disaster recovery

Amazon offers multiple data centers around the world, with a Multi-AZ feature that lets you
run cloud services in multiple data centers, so even in the case of a catastrophe that affects
one geographical region, your services would continue to run.

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 Amazon’s cloud migration guide defines 5 steps for migrating to AWS.
Steps for
Migrating Preparation and Business Planning

to AWS Get a clear picture of your current situation, the architecture of your existing applications,
the challenges you are facing and your business goals.

Discovery and Planning

Now that you have an idea of your goals, examine your IT portfolio and consider which
migration strategies and tools you’ll use for each of your applications.

Designing, Migrating & Validating Applications

Create a detailed migration plan for each of your applications. Start with a few apps as a Proof
of Concept and see how migration strategies and tools actually play out in your environment.

Operate

As applications move to the cloud, you start operating them within AWS and turn off the old
versions on-premises (unless you opt for a hybrid model). Build on your experience from
applications already running in the cloud for additional applications.

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 Amazon’s cloud migration guide defines 5 steps for migrating to AWS.
AWS
Train Staff Consider Security Needs and Access
Migration Map staff to cloud services and Define unified policies to ensure internal
Checklist infrastructure and understand who needs to users and third parties can access cloud
know what. applications from different locations.

Provide some formal training with an Make dynamic use of data. Data may be
experienced instructor. encrypted at rest but decrypted when

Amazon provides an official training used and transferred between multiple

program, including self-paced labs. cloud services.

Set up a Cloud Access Security Broker

Provide online training with resources from
(CASB), which takes log information
Amazon or eLearning vendors.
about user interactions and makes it
Provide employees a sandbox with a small
available for compliance, security and
budget to try out the technology.
operations purposes.
Create a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE)
to share knowledge about cloud technology.

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 Amazon’s cloud migration guide defines 5 steps for migrating to AWS.
AWS
Establish Cloud Performance Plan Database Migration
Migration KPIs Staff
Consider how to manage the actual data
Checklist Create a list of simple KPIs you can use to transfer and whether you need Extract,
monitor your cloud. Transform and Load (ETL).
Ensure you can collect, store, and visualize Consider how long data transfer will
the metrics. take, and whether you need Amazon
Cloud performance KPI examples include Direct Connect.
page load time, application error rates, CPU It you are switching to a different database
Usage %, bounce rate, and dwell time. or different version, consider application-
level changes and time for refactoring.

If you have tables larger than 200 GB or

hundreds of millions of rows, consider
using Amazon Database Management
Service (DMS) to load data in parallel.

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 4

Databases on AWS
Managed or Self Managed?

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 Pros of managed deployments Cons of managed deployments
Pros and
Elasticity scalability Version support
Cons of Fully RDS enables you to easily modify PostgreSQL RDS only supports specific MySQL or

Managed resources hosted on AWS. To do this, you need to

make some changes in the settings. The system
PostgreSQL versions.

Limit on number of instances

Databases on will roll out your changes within a few minutes.
RDS has a fixed maximum of database instances

Amazon
Pay on demand and security groups for each Amazon region.
RDS pricing is based on hourly fees, which
Storage limitation
require no upfront investment because you pay
database size on RDS is limited to a maximum
for the resources you use. You can also increase
of 16 TB.
and decrease allocated resources, on-demand,
as needed. Less control

Reserved instances because RDS manages many aspects, you lose

control over many database configuration options.
can help you significantly reduce costs. This
option is ideal for predictable workloads that do Vendor lock-in
not require on-demand flexibility. you will need to tune and test your database
before moving it into a new environment.

Set limitations

it is not possible to change the service level

agreements (SLAs) for RDS.

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 Cons of self-managed deployments
Pros and
Complexity Scaling
Cons of Self- self-managing PostgreSQL on AWS requires skills self-managed deployments require you to set

Managed and knowledge in AWS cloud environments and

database management.
up scaling jobs on your own, and then manage
groups and monitor the operation. This takes time

Databases on Security
and may not be the most efficient route to take
for demanding applications.
Amazon you need to know how to properly configure
and maintain the architecture, as well as set up
proper security measures. Misconfigurations can
create security vulnerabilities.

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 Pros of self-managed deployments
Pros and
Supports all versions No vendor lock in
Cons of Self- even if you run on a version not supported by you can set up your database in a way that

Managed RDS, you can run your database as is. ensures it can be easily migrated to other cloud
environments and on-premise locations.
No limits on number of instances
Databases on run as many databases as necessary by starting Scalability

Amazon additional EC2 instances. RDS is limited to 16 TB and allows the use of
only 40 database instances within a region. Self-
No storage limitations
managed deployments provide full control over
you can scale up storage using larger EBS
the amount of compute and storage resources
volumes, or third party storage services.
provisioned in EC2.
Cost-effective
Data protection
RDS charges additional fees for the management
a self-managed deployment gives you full control
layer. Self-management deployments cost less
over the configuration and schedule of your
because you pay only for cloud resources.
backups. You can set this up according to your
Flexibility own data and disaster recovery requirements.
self-managed deployments enable you to Extensive features
completely control the configurations of your
when you set up your own self-managed
database and its location.
deployment, you gain control over all features and
capabilities. This enables you to quickly upgrade
and patch your database at any time.
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Summary
AWS provides a wide range of managed database services. While
these services are convenient, they create various limitations
including database size, version, configuration, and backups.

An alternative to these managed services is to

self-manage your database in an EC2 instance.
This gives you full flexibility, but creates
complexity and management overhead.

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About NetApp

In a world full of generalists, NetApp is a specialist. We’re focused on one thing, helping
your business get the most out of your data. NetApp brings the enterprise-grade data
services you rely on into the cloud, and the simple flexibility of cloud into the data center.
Our industry-leading solutions work across diverse customer environments and the world’s
biggest public clouds.

As a cloud-led, data-centric software company, only NetApp can help build your unique data
fabric, simplify and connect your cloud, and securely deliver the right data, services, and
applications to the right people—anytime, anywhere.

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Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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