Basic Questions about Amazon RDS, S3 Storage, and Default RDS Tables

Question

I just created my first database instance on the Amazon RDS service. I was wondering...

1) Is there a way to have Amazon automatically back up my data in a way that it persists even if the instance is deleted?

2) Is it possible to share tables across multiple instances?

3) When I first connected to the instance, I found there were three databases: the one I specifically created, innob, and mysql. Should I continue using the one I created or one of the others? Are there cost implications?

THANK YOU.

Answer 1

You can use MySQl commands mysqlimport (import) and mysqldump (export) against Amazon RDS. IIRC Imports are limited to 1GB

Answer 2

1) Is there a way to have Amazon automatically back up my data in a way that it persists even if the instance is deleted?

Yes, Amazon can automatically backup your data

Amazon RDS can automatically back up all of your DB Instances. You can set the backup parameters when you create a DB Instance. However, if you don't set the backup retention period, Amazon RDS sets a default period for you. You can modify the backup parameters whenever you want.

See here

Also, there are DB snapshots which are are user-initiated backups of a DB Instance. DB Snapshots are retained until they are deleted by the user. See here.

2) Is it possible to share tables across multiple instances?

Yes, the instances must be in the same security group.

3) When I first connected to the instance, I found there were three databases: the one I specifically created, innob, and mysql.

The innodb and mysql tables are needed for mysql to run. You should use the one you created.

Answer 3

TFD: Imports are not limited to 1GB. However, aws recommends that if you are importing more than 1g, you should import tables separately from flatfiles, rather than monolithically piped in from mysqldump.

http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=2933