Amazon Aurora

A database service that provides a high-performance RDB as an AWS-managed offering.

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In one sentence

A database service that provides a high-performance RDB as an AWS-managed offering.

Overview

Amazon Aurora is an AWS relational database service compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL.

Common use cases

RDB for web applications
Business systems requiring high availability
Migration target compatible with MySQL or PostgreSQL

CLF-C02 exam points

An RDS-family managed database
Compatible with MySQL/PostgreSQL
Easy to configure for high availability

SAA-C03 exam points

Use Aurora Replicas to distribute read load
Use Multi-AZ configurations to improve availability
Aurora Serverless is a candidate for workloads with variable demand

Practical Use

Amazon Aurora is a relational database service compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL, built on top of a distributed storage layer designed independently by AWS. Compared with RDS for MySQL / RDS for PostgreSQL of the same instance class, Aurora is said to have advantages in throughput, availability, and recovery time. In practice, it is adopted for workloads with continuous read and write activity, such as primary RDBs for web applications, SaaS backends, and database layers for business systems that demand high availability. A defining characteristic of Aurora is the separation of the storage layer and the compute layer. The storage layer is automatically replicated across six copies spanning three AZs, providing data loss tolerance (writes continue with up to two copies lost, reads continue with up to three copies lost) and fast recovery times. Writes are processed by a single primary instance, while up to 15 Aurora Replicas distribute the read workload. For SaaS workloads with rapidly growing traffic or workloads with large demand fluctuations, Aurora Serverless v2 automatically increases and decreases compute capacity based on usage. CLF-C02 / SAA-C03 frequently ask questions such as "Which RDS variant is MySQL/PostgreSQL compatible?", "What configuration is used to distribute read workload? (→ Aurora Replica)", and "What is the difference between Multi-AZ and Read Replica?". The exam centers on understanding that Multi-AZ is a standby configuration for availability (the standby cannot be used for reads), while a Read Replica is a replica for read performance (writes cannot be performed on it). It is also worth noting that Aurora is positioned as one of the options within RDS.

Official Documentation

Cost notes

Charged for instances, storage, I/O, backups, and more
Not used for MVP to avoid fixed costs

Security notes

Place inside a VPC and restrict access sources
Do not hardcode credentials in code

Related services

Amazon Relational Database Service

A relational database whose operations are supported by AWS.

Amazon DynamoDB

AWS NoSQL database that requires no server management.

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

A service for building your own private network inside AWS.

Related architecture diagrams

THREE / TIER / VPC