AWS Announces Two New Database Services: AWS Database Migration Service and Amazon RDS for MariaDB

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced database tools and services that make it easier for enterprises to bring their production databases to AWS and break free from the cost and complexity of traditional commercial databases.

The fully managed AWS Database Migration Service allows customers to migrate their production Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL databases to AWS with virtually no downtime. And, the AWS Schema Conversion Tool makes it easy for these customers to switch database engines. AWS announced that its relational database service (Amazon RDS) will support its sixth database engine, the popular MySQL-compatible open-source database MariaDB. Finally, AWS shared that its new database engine Amazon Aurora, announced at the 2014 AWS re:Invent, has become the fastest-growing service in the history of AWS.

“With more than a hundred thousand active customers, and six database engines from which to choose, Amazon RDS has become the new normal for running relational databases in the cloud,” said Hal Berenson, VP, relational database services, AWS. “The launch of Amazon Aurora has enabled customers to get the performance of commercial-grade databases at the price of open source engines. And, this has only amplified our customers’ pleas to help them migrate their on-premises databases to Amazon Aurora and other Amazon RDS engines. With the AWS Database Migration Service, and its associated Schema Conversion Tool, customers can choose either to move the same database engine from on-premises to AWS, or change from one of the proprietary engines they’re running on-premises to one of the several open source engines available in Amazon RDS.“

Database Migration Service preview starts today
The Database Migration Service makes it easy for customers to migrate database engines they’re using on-premises to run on AWS, or to migrate from proprietary engines running on-premises to open source engines running in AWS. The service is very cost effective. For instance, using the AWS Data Migration Service customers can migrate a 1TB database from on-premises to AWS for $3. Setting up migration is easy and typically takes less than ten minutes. The Database Migration Service handles all of the tasks involved in moving data and completing the migration. It can be used to perform one-time migrations, or can maintain continuous replication between databases without a customer having to install or configure any complex software. It monitors the progress of replication and migration, notifies customers of any network or host failures, and automatically provisions a host replacement in the event of a failure. Customers pay a simple hourly fee for the compute resources they use for migrating their database. The Schema Conversion Tool, a feature of the migration service, ports database schemas and stored procedures from one database platform to another, so customers can move their applications from Oracle and SQL Server to Amazon Aurora, MySQL, MariaDB, and soon PostgreSQL.

RDS supports MariaDB
With support for six database engines, Amazon RDS allows customers to run familiar relational databases at a substantially lower cost without the operational complexity of on-premises systems. RDS supports MariaDB as a fully managed service, which means customers can deploy a MariaDB database with a few clicks in the AWS Management Console and RDS handles all of the administrative tasks involved in managing a database, including software installation, storage management, replication for HA, and backups for DR.

With Amazon RDS’s Provisioned IO/s (PIO/s) capability, MariaDB databases can scale to 6TB and 30,000 IO/s per database instance while maintaining fast and consistent performance. Customers can deploy production MariaDB applications using the Multi-Availability Zone (MAZ) deployment option. RDS will operate a synchronous stand-by replica with an automated fail-over mechanism. RDS for MariaDB supports cross-region snapshot copy operations, allowing customers to keep a backup copy in a different region for DR purposes. Customers can operate MariaDB databases in a logically isolated virtual network fully configured and controlled with strict firewall policies using Amazon Virtual Private cloud (VPC).

Aurora fastest-growing service in AWS history
Thousands of companies, including Expedia, Alfresco, Earth Networks, ISCS, Nasdaq, PG&E, WeTransfer, the Washington Post, and Zumba are among the many customers rapidly adopting Amazon Aurora. Since its release into availability in July 2015, Aurora has become the fastest-growing service in the history of AWS.