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RDS for Cloud Engineers.
September 18, 2023

RDS for Cloud Engineers.

Bill Starling | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)

We use it for our database solution currently. I've used RDS for Oracle, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, and MySQL and while each has its own nuances, RDS makes it simple to use. You can easily upgrade and keep maintenance up to date. It's easy to setup from the GUI in AWS, or you can use any of the number of infrastructure as code tools (terraform, cdk, cloudformation, etc.). RDS solves our database storage needs, and we use it for any number of areas in our business.
  • Easy to perform upgrades.
  • Scheduled maintenance.
  • Easy setup.
  • Backups are automated, or you can do them manually.
  • With some of the DB engines, it can be confusing to know which configuration files/parameter groups you're using.
  • It can be expensive to have a full disaster recovery setup in multi-regions. Usually, it ends up that you have to have a 'warm' or even a 'cold' DR.
  • Most 'downfalls' are related to the DB engine and not necessarily RDS (i.e., upgrading multiple versions at a time).
  • RDS is lower cost compared to on-site database servers but it can get costly if not set up properly in the cloud, especially if you want HA/DR setup with it.
  • The automated/scheduled maintenance and backups allowed us to cut on-site storage and backups as well as spend less time actually doing maintenance and backups manually. We can script things out and let it run within AWS. Saves lots of after-hours work and we only have to step in when something goes wrong, which we set up alerts for.
  • The risk for data loss is minimized almost to 0. We have yet to lose data when using RDS. Even if RDS somehow becomes unavailable, our data is protected. I don't think in the years I've used RDS that it's ever lost data (this is assuming you have your software/services setup properly with retries, transactions, etc.)
I've used on-site MSSQL, Oracle, and IBM DB2 as well as MSSQL and postgresql in Azure, and RDS is much easier to setup than any of those aforementioned engines/setups. This includes initial setup, maintenance, security, and configurations. RDS also makes it easy to get automated backups which you can store in the cloud and you can also have backups taken so that you can easily stand up a new instance in another region if you need DR.

Do you think Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) again?

Yes

You're unlikely to lose data with RDS. AWS does a great job of keeping things up and running and with automated/scheduled backups you rarely will lose data unless you've misconfigured your RDS instance/cluster. While it can be costly it's not difficult at all to set up true HA/DR for your database. The automated/scheduled maintenance also is nice so that you can limit interruptions to software/services.