Post from 2016:
At AWS re:Invent last year, we joined Amazon as a Relational Database Services (RDS) database migration partner. RDS is back in the news as Amazon announced several new updates this month. Among the new features is the ability to share encrypted database snapshots with other AWS accounts, and adding encryption to a previously unencrypted database instance.
AWS Database Migration Service is currently available in preview mode; as an RDS partner, we’ve had some good practice with this service and can address some features and benefits of it.
Minimize Downtime During Migrations: After the initial database migration is complete, the target database remains in sync with the source for as long as you’d like. This minimizes risk and application downtime.
Supports All Widely Used Databases: AWS Database Migration Service supports homogenous migrations, like Oracle to Oracle and it also supports heterogeneous migrations between different database platforms, like SQL server to Amazon Aurora. Additionally, this service can migrate on-prem databases to Amazon RDS or Amazon EC2, and can migrate one RDS database to another.
Fast and Easy Setup: A migration task is where you define the set of information based on the AWS Database Migration Service that is executing the migration. Once setup is complete, you can test the task against a development or test environment to verify each step of your entire process. After that’s done, the same task can be used for any other environments.
Low Cost: You’re only paying for the compute resources used during the migration. According to Amazon, a terabyte-size database can be migrated for as little as $3.
Reliability: AWS Database Migration Service is constantly monitoring source and target databases, network connectivity, and the replication instance. Occasionally, an error may pop up that can’t be automatically resolved. In this case, AWS provides a detailed diagnostic report for you to respond accordingly. This is an important benefit–without this strong monitoring presence, the source and target databases could become unsynchronized, resulting in unreliable data.
There are additional useful features of AWS’s service, as well – the change data capture capability is always capturing and applying all data changes from the source database to the target. This enables the user to keep the source database operational during the migration process, and puts them in the driver’s seat for when to move an application over to the target database. AWS Database Migration Service also provides an end-to-end view of the load and replication processes, including the latency and throughput of the data transfer. As mentioned earlier, this data and monitoring will help resolve any errors or challenges that may occur during database migration.
If you’ve worked in a data migration project before, you know it’s no walk in the park. Previously, developers would need to write their own migration scripts, constantly testing them out until they worked flawlessly. A number of other roles are involved with data migration, as well, including solutions and infrastructure architects, database administrators, engineers, and quality assurance testers. With AWS’s Database Migration Service, it’s easier and less time-consuming to migrate data to AWS.
To learn more about AWS RDS Database Migration Service, visit their FAQ, or get in touch with us. As an AWS partner, our Managed Amazon RDS Solution provides a complete lifecycle approach to designing, migration, and management of databases with certified DBAs, deployed with best practices for security, architecture, and performance.
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