Item: Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Rating: 9
Author: John Vargo

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I utilize Amazon RDS as the backbone for content management and stored user information for our corporate web presence. I was looking for a scalable relational database that would be an easy transition with my background in MySQL. I didn't want to spend a lot of time setting up and managing replication and backup, and I didn't want daily maintenance tasks. RDS fit the bill nicely, and coupled with my EC2-based web hosting, provides a easy-to-implement security.

Pros and Cons

Simplicity
Security
Monitoring

Properly implementing security can be challenging for new users
Administrative tools are not always intuitive

Return on Investment

Highly available, highly reliable
Very little maintenance required
Minimal administrative maintenance frees developers to work on other tasks

Alternatives Considered

GoDaddy

Previously used Media Temple database hosting (now GoDaddy). While that endeavor was also successful, the AWS RDS is more secure, with higher availability and better documentation.

Key Insights

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

Other Software Used

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Route 53, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for system administrators looking to incorporate a highly available RDBMS into their AWS-hosted web site. Not well suited for WYSIWYG web site developers.

Amazon RDS Provides Simple, Secure, and Highly Available MySQL Database Hosting

Overall Satisfaction with Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)