AWS Fundamentals: RDS & Aurora Backup and Monitoring

Question 1

What are automated backups in RDS?

Answer 1

Automated backups perform a daily full backup during a set window and back up transaction logs every five minutes. This allows you to restore to any point in time from the oldest backup up to the last five minutes, and the retention can be set from 1 to 35 days.

Question 2

What are manual DB snapshots in RDS?

Answer 2

Manual DB snapshots are user-triggered backups that can be retained for as long as you need. Unlike automated backups, they don’t expire automatically and can be restored later.

Question 3

How can DB snapshots help save costs?

Answer 3

Instead of keeping an RDS database running, you can take a manual snapshot, delete the database, and restore it later. This saves on storage costs since snapshots are cheaper than running an active RDS instance.

Question 4

How does Aurora’s backup system differ from RDS?

Answer 4

Aurora’s backups are automated (no option to disable) and can be retained for 1 to 35 days. Point-in-time recovery is available within this retention period. Manual snapshots in Aurora are similar to RDS and are retained for as long as needed.

Question 5

How can you restore an RDS MySQL database from S3?

Answer 5

You can restore a backup stored on Amazon S3 onto a new RDS MySQL instance.

Question 6

How do you restore an Aurora MySQL database from S3?

Answer 6

For Aurora MySQL, you must use Percona XtraBackup to back up your on-premises MySQL database, store it on Amazon S3, and then restore it to an Aurora MySQL cluster.

Question 7

What is Aurora Database Cloning?

Answer 7

Aurora Database Cloning allows you to create a new Aurora database cluster from an existing one, using copy-on-write. This process is fast and cost-effective, ideal for creating staging databases from production without impacting the original database.

Question 8

How does Aurora Database Cloning work?

Answer 8

Initially, both the original and cloned databases share the same data volume. As updates are made to either database, new storage is allocated for the changes, making the process fast and efficient while minimizing impact on the production database.

Question 9

What are the benefits of Aurora Database Cloning?

Answer 9

It is fast, cost-effective, and allows you to create a staging environment from a production database without using traditional snapshot and restore methods, reducing the impact on production performance.