Amazon Launches Cloud Database Service

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), a new web service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale relational databases in the cloud.

Amazon RDS provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while automating time-consuming database administration tasks, freeing users to focus on their application and their business. The database is based on the MySQL platform, the company said.

Moreover, AWS officials noted that as with all Amazon Web Services, there are no up-front investments required, and users pay only for the resources they use.

Also announced on 27 October, AWS has lowered prices and introduced a new family of High-Memory instances for Amazon EC2. To get started using Amazon RDS, and other Amazon Web Services, visit http://aws.amazon.com.

“For almost two years, many AWS customers have taken advantage of the simplicity, reliability, and seamless scalability that Amazon SimpleDB provides; however, many customers have told us that their applications require a relational database. That’s why we built Amazon RDS, which combines a familiar relational database with automated management and the instant scalability of the AWS cloud,” said Adam Selipsky, vice president of Amazon Web Services, in a statement.

Amazon RDS provides a basic MySQL database, so existing code and applications developers have in use today with their existing MySQL databases work seamlessly with Amazon RDS. The service automatically handles common database administration tasks such as setup and provisioning, patch management, and backup – storing the backups for a user-defined retention period, the company said.

Meanwhile, customers also have the flexibility to scale the compute and storage resources associated with their database instance through a simple API call, AWS officials said, noting that Amazon RDS is easy to deploy and simple to manage.

“I found Amazon RDS to be a very efficient way to deploy MySQL, and a natural fit for cloud-based application deployment,” said David Tompkins, a senior computer scientist at Adobe Systems’ Advanced Technology Labs. “The instance is up and running in minutes, and very sensible defaults are baked in. The APIs provide streamlined administration, with an ability to programmatically automate administration functions — which is a key feature in cloud-based applications. Most importantly, Amazon RDS provides pain-free scalability – which is typically one of the most time-consuming and expensive aspects of database deployment.”

“We started using Amazon RDS to store metadata for each and every publisher, advertiser and creative we serve through the system,” said Michael Lugassy, founder and CEO of Kehalim, an advertising optimization and monetization platform, in a statement. “After noticing a big performance improvement, we decided to use Amazon RDS to track all of our impression, clicks, and earning data as well. Results were amazing and freed us from the need to run our own MySQL instances. Amazon RDS allows us to focus on front-end features, rather than back-end database complexity.”

“Our customers have been clamoring for a MySQL option as part of the Heroku platform, so we were thrilled to learn about Amazon RDS,” said Morten Bagai, director of business development at Heroku, a Ruby Platform-as-a-Service provider, in a statement. “Amazon Web Services has made it painless to provision and manage a MySQL database. Based on our testing, we expect Amazon RDS to be a very popular database option for our customers.”

Separately, AWS is also lowering prices on all Amazon EC2 On-Demand compute instances, effective on November 1. Charges for Linux-based instances will drop 15 percent — a small Linux instance will now cost just 8.5 cents per hour, compared to the previous price of 10 cents per hour.

In addition, AWS also is introducing a new family of High-Memory Instances for Amazon EC2. This further expands the available selection of computing configurations for Amazon EC2, helping customers to choose the CPU capacity, memory resources, and networking throughput that their applications require. High-Memory Instances are designed to be used with memory-intensive workloads such as databases, caching, and rendering, and are optimized for low-latency, high-throughput performance, AWS officials said.