Amazon RDS

Question 1

What databases are supported?

Answer 1

MSSQL, MySql, MariaDB (fork of MySQL), PostgreSQL, Oracle

Question 2

What are the benefits?

Answer 2

1. Automated backups integrated with AWS storage services
2. Patching in customer-defined maintenance time-windows
3. Scaling, replication (not all DB support replication) and redundancy

Question 3

What is the best for storing large binary objects (BLOBs)?

Answer 3

S3 (Do not use RDS)

Question 4

What is best for automated scalability?

Answer 4

DynamoDB (Do not use RDS)

Question 5

What is best to store Name/Value?

Answer 5

DynamoDB

Question 6

What is best storing data that is not structured or unpredictable?

Answer 6

DynamoDB

Question 7

What about other database platforms like IBM DB2 or SAP HANA?

Answer 7

Use EC2

Question 8

What do you use if you need COMPLETE control over the database?

Answer 8

Use EC2 (EC2 will provides access to all features, configuration options vs. RDS that hides some)

Question 9

What is replication type between Master and StandBy?

Answer 9

Synchronous

Question 10

What is replication type between Master and Read replica?

Answer 10

Asynchronous

Question 11

What happens when Master goes down?

Answer 11

Standby-replica takes place of the master

Question 12

What happens when Master and all StandBy replicas go down?

Answer 12

One of the Read-replicas take place of the master. This is 2-step process. First we promote to a single-AZ replica. And only then to multi-AZ replica.