What Is RDS? Exploring Amazon Relational Database Services

Amazon Relational Database Services (RDS) helps developers set up, manage, and scale their relational databases on cloud servers. But what is RDS, and how can this cloud hosting platform improve your business?

There are many reasons developers choose Amazon RDS. It offers exceptional performance, robust security, the high availability you'd expect from an enterprise services provider, and compatibility with various database options.

Whatever relational database your application relies on, it's likely supported by Amazon RDS. From Amazon Aurora, MySQL, and MariaDB to SQL Server, Oracle Database, and PostgreSQL, there are many DBs to deploy on Amazon's cloud hosting solution.

Why use Amazon RDS?

Once you know how RDS works, its benefits quickly become apparent for developing an online application that needs a reliable, scalable database. Amazon RDS provides the following advantages:

1. Use familiar databases

Because Amazon RDS supports some of the most popular and versatile database types, developers and systems administrators can use their existing skills to manage their data. The only change is in how the server is run.

2. Only pay for what you use

With Amazon RDS and other AWS cloud services, you only pay for the computing resources you use. This is beneficial for small organizations with no need for a dedicated server and larger organizations that struggle to predict demand and scale their online applications.

3. Automate common tasks

Amazon RDS automates many time-consuming database management and administration tasks, including hardware provisioning, backups, database deployment, and patching. This dramatically reduces the burden on your IT support team and can cut the costs of managing your databases.

4. Access Amazon's security features

Securing a database requires time and specialist knowledge. Rather than burdening your IT team, let Amazon handle many security tasks. Isolate your databases in the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), use industry-standard encryption to protect the database, and configure access permissions and security groups from the AWS Management Console.

5. Manage your instances with AWS API

Amazon's cloud API lets you automate the deployment of new instances and manage scaling and configuration. Save time and costs associated with database management while freeing your IT team to focus on other issues.

What is Amazon RDS, and how does it work?

Amazon RDS is accessible via the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Management Console. It can be controlled using the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) or API calls. Using these tools, managers can spin up instances on demand and apply their desired settings.

Amazon offers various configurations of memory, CPU power, and networking throughput to support everything from small app prototypes to databases for heavy-duty applications.

Types of RDS storage

In addition to letting users allocate CPU power and memory for their databases, Amazon also allows them to choose their preferred type of storage. There are three primary Amazon RDS storage types:

• Magnetic drives: This is the lowest-cost option but also the slowest.
• General-purpose SSD: Solid-state drives are much faster than magnetic drives. Amazon recommends general-purpose SSDs for most users.
• Provisioned input/output operations per second (IOPS): This is a higher-performance SSD option for those running I/O intensive workloads that require optimal performance.

Amazon RDS pricing varies significantly, depending on which type you choose and how much data you need to store. In general, even high-performance SSDs are more affordable than Amazon Aurora. However, it's important to look at all the specifications when comparing Amazon RDS instance types, not just storage speed. Memory, storage space, CPUs, and the Availability Zone all impact the performance of your online application.

The pros and cons of RDS

Like any service, Amazon RDS provides multiple benefits to users, but there are a few caveats. 

Benefits of RDS

• High availability: Amazon RDS instances are deployed on the same reliable infrastructure as Amazon AWS servers. If availability is essential for your application, you can choose an Amazon Multi-AZ RDS. This provides multiple RDS instances deployed to different Availability Zones. This way, an outage in one area shouldn’t affect your secondary RDS.
• Highly scalable: Rather than purchasing new hardware every time your database servers can't handle the load, you can opt for cloud-hosted databases and scale up the instance or add a new one as your application’s needs evolve.
• Fast: Choose from various database server and hardware options, including inexpensive databases for general or low-load use and SSD options when speed is imperative.
• Easy to administer via an API: The AWS API lets you create, scale, and change new instances. This allows developers to automate many tasks related to managing their RDS instances.
• Sophisticated security features: Administrators can run their databases in Amazon's Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), isolating them from the wider internet. Developers can then connect their application servers to the database over an encrypted VPN.
• Cost-effective for various application sizes: Because you can choose the size and speed of your instance and pay only for the computing time used, Amazon RDS is relatively inexpensive for smaller organizations. Easy scaling and maintenance make the platform a good option for many larger organizations.

Challenges of RDS

• No root access: With Amazon RDS, there's no root access to the underlying server. Although this isn't an issue for most applications, it does mean administrators cannot perform certain procedures themselves.
• Required downtimes: Patching and scaling servers may require downtime. Fortunately, the downtime needed for scaling operations is typically quite short.

Use cases

Amazon RDS can be used for most online application types that require a database. Some common RDS use cases include the following:

• Online stores: Store and customer databases can grow rapidly, and traffic to online stores can be unpredictable — often depending on advertising and seasonal demands. This is why many sellers choose to operate through Amazon’s marketplace. If you want to curate your customers’ experience with a store app, Amazon RDS's powerful options and scaling features make it a popular choice.
• Gaming: Online games require powerful database tools and high availability, especially those featuring large player bases and persistent multiplayer features. Amazon RDS’s reliability and broad database compatibility make it an excellent choice.
• Mobile apps: Many mobile applications provide communication features or depend on databases for storing and retrieving content. Amazon RDS’s simplicity lets developers quickly deploy and alter databases.
• Streaming applications: Amazon RDS offers immense storage space, making it suitable for media streaming applications and other SaaS products that may otherwise struggle to handle an expanding content database.

Amazon Aurora versus Amazon RDS

Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS both let you set up and manage relational databases in the cloud, but each has unique benefits and downsides. Here are some side-by-side comparisons:

• Amazon RDS supports a wide variety of databases, including MySQL, Oracle Databases, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL. Amazon Aurora is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL.
• Amazon Aurora offers automatic storage scaling, whereas Amazon RDS requires users to manage their own scaling and instance creation.
• Amazon Aurora is generally aimed at those who require higher performance than Amazon RDS.
• Amazon RDS offers more affordable pricing options than Amazon Aurora.
• Many (but not all) Amazon RDS instance sizes offer Amazon Aurora as a database option.
• Amazon Aurora's backup options are more powerful than Amazon RDS and include faster recovery options to limit downtime.

If you aren't sure whether to choose Amazon Aurora or RDS, RDS is likely adequate for your needs. Aurora’s high performance and uptime come at a premium price and aren’t typically necessary for the average user.

Manage and share your RDS data with Orderful's EDI solutions

If you have an app powered by Amazon RDS, you may be seeking secure ways to share and manage data across cloud platforms or between cloud and on-premise applications. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is a powerful solution. Speak to an expert at Orderful to learn how we can fulfill your EDI needs.