Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Billing

Question 1

What happens when an RDS DB engine version is deprecated?

Billing

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database

Answer 1

When a minor version of a database engine is deprecated in Amazon RDS, we will provide a three (3) month period after the announcement before beginning automatic upgrades. At the end of the this period, all instances still running the deprecated minor version will be scheduled for automatic upgrade to the latest supported minor version during their scheduled maintenance windows.

When a major version of database engine is deprecated in Amazon RDS, we will provide a minimum six (6) month period after the announcement of a deprecation for you to initiate an upgrade to a supported major version. At the end of this period, an automatic upgrade to the next major version will be applied to any instances still running the deprecated version during their scheduled maintenance windows.

Once a major or minor database engine version is no longer supported in Amazon RDS, any DB instance restored from a DB snapshot created with the unsupported version will automatically and immediately be upgraded to a currently supported version.

Question 2

How will I be charged and billed for my use of Amazon RDS?

Billing

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database

Answer 2

You pay only for what you use, and there are no minimum or setup fees. You are billed based on:

DB instance hours – Based on the class (e.g. db.t2.micro, db.m4.large) of the DB instance consumed. Partial DB instance hours consumed are billed as full hours.

Storage (per GB per month) – Storage capacity you have provisioned to your DB instance. If you scale your provisioned storage capacity within the month, your bill will be pro-rated.

I/O requests per month – Total number of storage I/O requests you have (for Amazon RDS Magnetic Storage and Amazon Aurora only)

Provisioned IOPS per month – Provisioned IOPS rate, regardless of IOPS consumed (for Amazon RDS Provisioned IOPS (SSD) Storage only)

Backup Storage – Backup storage is the storage associated with your automated database backups and any customer-initiated database snapshots. Increasing your backup retention period or taking additional database snapshots increases the backup storage consumed by your database.

Data transfer – Internet data transfer in and out of your DB instance.

For Amazon RDS pricing information, please visit the pricing section on the Amazon RDS product page.

Question 3

When does billing of my Amazon RDS DB instances begin and end?

Billing

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database

Answer 3

Billing commences for a DB instance as soon as the DB instance is available. Billing continues until the DB instance terminates, which would occur upon deletion or in the event of instance failure.

Question 4

What defines billable Amazon RDS instance hours?

Billing

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database

Answer 4

DB instance hours are billed for each hour your DB instance is running in an available state. If you no longer wish to be charged for your DB instance, you must stop or delete it to avoid being billed for additional instance hours. Partial DB instance hours consumed are billed as full hours.

Question 5

How will I be billed for a stopped DB instance?

Billing

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database

Answer 5

While your database instance is stopped, you are charged for provisioned storage (including Provisioned IOPS) and backup storage (including manual snapshots and automated backups within your specified retention window), but not for DB instance hours.

Question 6

Why does my additional backup storage cost more than allocated DB instance storage?

Billing

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database

Answer 6

The storage provisioned to your DB instance for your primary data is located within a single Availability Zone. When your database is backed up, the backup data (including transactions logs) is geo-redundantly replicated across multiple Availability Zones to provide even greater levels of data durability. The price for backup storage beyond your free allocation reflects this extra replication that occurs to maximize the durability of your critical backups.

Question 7

How will I be billed for Multi-AZ DB instance deployments?

Billing

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database

Answer 7

If you specify that your DB instance should be a Multi-AZ deployment, you will be billed according to the Multi-AZ pricing posted on the Amazon RDS pricing page. Multi-AZ billing is based on:

Multi-AZ DB instance hours – Based on the class (e.g. db.t2.micro, db.m4.large) of the DB instance consumed. As with standard deployments in a single Availability Zone, partial DB instance hours consumed are billed as full hours. If you convert your DB instance deployment between standard and Multi-AZ within a given hour, you will be charged both applicable rates for that hour.

Provisioned storage (for Multi-AZ DB instance) – If you convert your deployment between standard and Multi-AZ within a given hour, you will be charged the higher of the applicable storage rates for that hour.

I/O requests per month – Total number of storage I/O requests you have. Multi-AZ deployments consume a larger volume of I/O requests than standard DB instance deployments, depending on your database write/read ratio. Write I/O usage associated with database updates will double as Amazon RDS synchronously replicates your data to the standby DB instance. Read I/O usage will remain the same.

Backup Storage – Your backup storage usage will not change whether your DB instance is a standard or Multi-AZ deployment. Backups will simply be taken from your standby to avoid I/O suspension on the DB instance primary.

Data transfer – You are not charged for the data transfer incurred in replicating data between your primary and standby. Internet data transfer in and out of your DB instance is charged the same as with a standard deployment.