RDS - Relational Database Service

Question 1

What is RDS

Answer 1

Relational Database Service is a managed DB service for DB that use SQL and allows you to create databases in the cloud that are managed by AWS

Question 2

What are the databases managed by RDS?

Answer 2

• Postgres
• MySQL
• MariaDB
• Oracle
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Aurora (AWS Proprietary database)

Question 3

What can’t you do on RDS that can do if you would have a DB deployed on EC2?

Answer 3

you can’t SSH into your instance

Question 4

What you must do to have backups in RDS?

Answer 4

nothing, backups are automatically enabled in RDS

Question 5

What does allow you to do the RDS automated backups?

Answer 5

to restore to any point in time from oldest backup to 5 minutes ago

Question 6

How frequently does run a RDS full backup?

Answer 6

daily during the maintenance windows

Question 7

how frequently are transaction logs backed up on RDS?

Answer 7

every 5 minutes

Question 8

how many days are automatic logs retained by default in RDS?

Answer 8

7 days, can be increased to 35

Question 9

what are RDS DB snapshots?

Answer 9

they are backups manually triggered by the user

Question 10

how many days are db snapshots retained by default in RDS?

Answer 10

for as long as you want

Question 11

What is the max number of read replicas allowed in RDS?

Answer 11

up to 5

Question 12

Are RDS read replicas cross AZ or cross regions?

Answer 12

yes to all

Question 13

how does happen replication on RDS?

Answer 13

async

Question 14

If something is wrong what can you do with your RDS replica?

Answer 14

you can promote it to be a master DB

Question 15

What needs to be done on application side to leverage RDS replicas?

Answer 15

applications must update the connection string

Question 16

what SQL statements are allowed on RDS replicas?

Answer 16

just selects

Question 17

What is a common use of RDS replicas?

Answer 17

to run a reporting application to run some analytics

Question 18

What happens when data goes from 1 AZ to another?

Answer 18

there is a cost involved

Question 19

What can you do to reduce cost of RDS replicas?

Answer 19

you can have them in the same AZ

Question 20

What is RDS multi AZ for disaster recovery setup?

Answer 20

RDS uses read replicas and the replication is sync

Question 21

What is provided by RDS multi-AZ for disaster recovery setup?

Answer 21

one DNS name and automatic failover to standby

Question 22

How and when can you encrypt data at rest on RDS?

Answer 22

with AWS KMS - AES-256 only at launch time

Question 23

how can you encrypt a read replica of a master RDS that is not encrypted?

Answer 23

you can’t

Question 24

What RDS DBs can use TDE (Transparent Data Encryption)?

Answer 24

Oracle and SQL Server

Question 25

What can you use to encrypt RDS data in-flight?

Answer 25

SSL certificates

Question 26

How are RDS snapshots in terms of encryption?

Answer 26

snapshots preserve encryption status

Question 27

What can you do when you copy a RDS snapshot?

Answer 27

you can encrypt it

Question 28

How can you encrypt an un-encrypted RDS DB?

Answer 28

1-create a snapshot 2-copy and enable encryption 3-restore the DB from the encrypted snapshot 4-migrate applications to the new DB and delete the old one

Question 29

What does RDS use to secure network?

Answer 29

leverages SGs as EC2 instances controling which IP / SG can communicate with RDS

Question 30

Within what is usually RDS deployed?

Answer 30

within a private subnet

Question 31

What does help to control who can manage RDS?

Answer 31

IAM policies through RDS API

Question 32

How can you login into RDS DBs?

Answer 32

using traditional username and password

Question 33

What RDS DBs allow to authenticate using IAM-based auth?

Answer 33

Postgre and MySQL

Question 34

What you need to use IAM-based auth on RDS?

Answer 34

an auth token obtained through IAM and RDS API calls

Question 35

What is the lifetime of RDS IAM auth tokens?

Answer 35

15 minutes

Question 36

What are RDS parameter groups?

Answer 36

it allows you to manage your DB engine configuration by associating your DB instances

Question 37

Is Aurora open source?

Answer 37

no, it is a proprietary technology from AWS

Question 38

Which DBs are supported as Aurora DB?

Answer 38

Postgres and MySQL

Question 39

How is Aurora performance compared to RDS MySQL and Posgre?

Answer 39

5x MySQL | 3x Postgre

Question 40

How does increment Aurora storage?

Answer 40

automatically in increments of 10GB, up to 64TB

Question 41

How many replicas can you use on Aurora?

Answer 41

Aurora can have 15 replicas while MySQL has 5, and the replication process is faster (sub 10 ms replica lag)

Question 42

What are the main features of Aurora?

Answer 42

* Automatic fail-over * Backup and Recovery * Isolation and security * Industry compliance * Push-button scaling * Automated Patching with Zero Downtime * Advanced Monitoring * Routine Maintenance * Backtrack: restore data at any point of time without using backups

Question 43

What is provided by Aurora cluster?

Answer 43

A writer endpoint to master and a Reader endpoint for replicas

Question 44

What is provided by Aurora cluster Reader Endpoint?

Answer 44

A connection load balancing

Question 45

Can you scale on Aurora?

Answer 45

you can auto scale replicas

Question 46

What is Aurora Serverless?

Answer 46

is an on-demand, auto-scaling configuration based on actual usage for Amazon Aurora

Question 47

What is good for Aurora Serverless?

Answer 47

for infrequent, intermittent or unpredictable workloads

Question 48

As what can you infer an Online Transactional Processing (OLTP)?

Answer 48

as a Relational Database

Question 49

How can you set auto scaling in RDS?

Answer 49

you can't auto scale RDS

Question 50

What is Global Aurora?

Answer 50

It allows a single Aurora database to span multiple AWS regions, with fast replication to enable low-latency global reads and disaster recovery from region-wide outages

Question 51

What is provided by Global Aurora?

Answer 51

o 1 Primary Region (read / write) o Up to 5 secondary (read-only) regions, replication lag is less than 1 second o Up to 16 Read Replicas per secondary region o Helps for decreasing latency o Promoting another region (for disaster recovery) has an RTO of < 1 minute