RDS

Question 1

How to improve high availability for an RDS instance?

Answer 1

Multi-AZ: You can force a failover; Single endpoint

Question 2

How to improve performance?

Answer 2

Add a read-replica; In case the primary is lost, the application needs to be manually updated in terms of database JDBC string/endpoint

Question 3

Explain automated backups VS DB snapshots

Answer 3

Automated backups: Stored for free (DB size) in S3; Allow point in time recovery. A full backup is restored and multiple transactional log backups are applied; May experience latency for I/O
DB Snapshot: Manually triggered

Question 4

What happens with the endpoint in case of restore?

Answer 4

The restore will bring a new RDS instance with a NEW endpoint

Question 5

For what engines the Multi-AZ is availble?

Answer 5

ALL, but Aurora:
MySQL
Postgres
SQL Server
Oracle
MariaDB

Question 6

For what engines the Read-Replica is available?

Answer 6

ALL, but SQL Server:
MySQL
Postgres
Oracle
MariaDB
Aurora

Automated backups turned ON is a requirement;
Up to 5 read-replicas can be configured;
The read-replica can be promoted to its own database, but this breaks the replication

Question 7

How can a MySQL be migrated to Aurora?

Answer 7

From RDS perspective, click on Actions->Create Aurora read-replica

Question 8

How can you easily migrate one RDS instance to another region?

Answer 8

Create a read-replica on another region and promote it ;)