Amazon RDS Reviews

I use Amazon RDS for my access control system, which manages permissions for users to enter places like universities, workspaces, and club team areas. Amazon RDS stores user data and keeps access permissions current, ensuring the system is reliable and responsive for user security and convenience.

The most valuable features of Amazon RDS are its scalability, reliability, and intelligence.

The only thing that needs improvement would be the pricing of the solution. Otherwise, it works very well as it is.

I have been using Amazon RDS for three years.

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I haven't had any issues with it so far.

Scalability is one of Amazon RDS's strongest points. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

In 2019, we had a paid subscription for AWS technical support, not specifically for Amazon RDS. We reached out to them when we were conducting stress testing on our system and noticed a significant performance drop, but we couldn't identify the cause. AWS support was helpful. They opened a ticket, communicated with us, and worked with us to pinpoint the problem. Eventually, they helped us resolve the issue, which was valuable for our project.

I have previously used another DBaaS solution apart from AWS, which was Google Cloud Platform (GCP). In GCP, we used a PostgreSQL database. One standout feature of GCP that I appreciated was its robust monitoring tools, which were helpful for analyzing performance and identifying issues. While I can't speak in depth about AWS's monitoring capabilities, based on my experience, GCP's tools were quite beneficial in this regard.

Setting up Amazon RDS is quite simple. First, you create an instance by specifying details like its name, storage preferences, and security settings. You can also choose to set up backups. After clicking "create," your RDS instance is ready within minutes. You receive connection parameters, which you use in your application to connect to the database. From there, you can start creating tables and storing data. It's a straightforward process that doesn't require much technical complexity. The deployment of Amazon RDS instance was very quick configuration took only a few minutes. It is an easy and cost-effective process, with a setup fee of around $31. Getting the connection parameters and establishing the connection to the database was seamless and efficient. Overall, it was a smooth and positive experience. 
Amazon RDS requires some maintenance, but it is not complicated. You might need to update the database configuration from time to time, which can be done by modifying your RDS instance. You can also schedule regular backups and updates provided by AWS. These changes can be controlled by you, so it is an organized process that ensures your database stays in good shape without much hassle. We have approximately 10,000 users of the solution at our company.

Amazon RDS is quite expensive.

My advice for those starting with AWS products is to closely monitor your usage and expenses. With on-demand and pay-as-you-go services, it is easy to keep using resources without realizing the costs adding up. So, keep a close eye on your bills to control expenses, as pricing might seem small but can accumulate quickly. This is important for cost management in general, and it applies to AWS services too. Overall, I would rate Amazon RDS a nine out of ten.

We use it for data warehousing and transforming data.

One of the most valuable features is that it is serverless, so we don't have to worry about scaling.

We don't have control over tweaking the database parameters, so we switched to Aurora.

In the next release, it would be great to have access to core parameters to improve or tweak the performance.

I have been using it for five years. 

I would give it a nine because it's a reliable and cost-effective solution.

Amazon RDS is custom development. 

Some databases that we would like to use are lightweight and simple to integrate with the application.

Amazon RDS is lightweight and flexible.

It's a secure solution.

The security features could be improved.

I have been working with Amazon RDS for three years.

It is part of the cloud migration solution.

Amazon RDS is quite stable.

Amazon RDS is a scalable solution.

RDS is a single instance. However, the actual users are approximately 500 people, both direct and indirect.

We have stopped using it.

I have not contacted technical support.

In the past, I used Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon EMR, and Amazon Redshift, but I no longer use them.

The initial setup is satisfactory.

It took two weeks to complete the installation.

We have three engineers, one lead, and one manager to maintain this solution.

With the help of our in-house staff, we completed the installation on our own.

Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis.

I would rate Amazon RDS a ten out of ten because it is lightweight, and the flexibility.

Amazon RDS is used for SQL Databases.

The most valuable aspect of Amazon RDS is it is on the cloud.

Amazon RDS could improve by having more sophisticated. I use other solutions that have better technology for more difficult tasks.

I have been using Amazon RDS for approximately two years.

The version of Amazon RDS depends on the database being used.

The stability of the solution depends on the RDS being used. For example, Aurora is not stable but Postgres is. The stability could improve.

I rate the scalability of Amazon RDS a six out of ten.

The level or quality of support depends on how much you are paying for support. If you are paying for premium support then it will be better than the standard support offering.

The initial setup of Amazon RDS is simple. The deployment is quick because of automation. It can be done in less than 10 minutes.

The solution does not require human intervention for deployment. You can simply load it into the pipeline and the pipeline will deploy it automatically.

I rate the initial setup of Amazon RDS a ten out of ten.

Amazon RDS could improve by reducing the price.

I rate the price of Amazon RDS an eight out of ten.

We have a few engineers doing the maintenance of the solution. They maintain the standardized code that everyone uses.

My advice to others is for them to use a different solution, such as Aurora, DynamoDB, or MongoDB. Amazon RDS is only used if the user wants to use a legacy-type application.

This is a well-established solution.

I rate Amazon RDS a seven out of ten.

The primary use case is when you have to host your application on the Amazon cloud and your application uses database. Amazon RDS supports the following database engines: Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle Database, and SQL Server database. Amazon provides AWS Database Migration Service to migrate your existing databases to the Amazon cloud. It automates many aspects of database management viz hardware provisioning, database set up, database patching, and backups, which frees your database administrator to focus on important tasks. It also saves on the DB licencing costs.

It makes it easy to administer the database. It helps to scale your database by providing Read Replicas, which reduce transaction time. It is highly available and durable which helps in disaster recovery and management. 

It is also secure. You can build your own VPC and host the database inside it, which will produce robust security. You still need to follow the principles of security as highlighted by Amazon. 

Most useful is its availability to support multiple databases, such as Aurora, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MariaDB, and PostgresSQL. Your application can use multiple databases as required. Combine that with the Automated CI/CD tools, this makes it easy to implement the microservices architecture, which is the need of the hour for web based applications. The capability provided by the RDS to automate a portion of the RDBMS tasks, such as backups and performance tunings for multiple database engines, helps to save on DBA time and cost.

The Amazon RDS engine could provide features for additional databases, such as Db2. It could also provide support for other databases, such as NoSQL databases, DynamoDB, and Apache Cassandra. They could all stay under one hood.

Another improvement that Amazon could do is to market their product so that more customers can use it. With Microsoft having its own cloud Azure hosting SQL Server databases and Oracle coming up with its own cloud, there appears to be more competition. As more customers move to Amazon cloud, it will increase the utilization of the RDS, then more customers will be able to harness the power of Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS).

I have been using this solution since 2015 on my consulting projects with a variety of clients.

This Solution is very stable, as many customers have witnessed. Responsibility to set up the Amazon VPC, servers, and RDS does take work. This requires a solid AWS (infrastructure): Administrators and networking team. They need to work with the AWS team, following the stringent security guidelines that will help to build stability for the solution. 

Amazon Web Services is built for scalability. RDS is designed with scalability in mind.

It is available. You need to negotiate and engage their services.

Earlier, we were using traditional on-prem databases. The need to switch to Amazon RDS has been due to a variety of factors. One such factor is the need to move the existing applications in our data center with variable demand utilization and pre-installed servers and databases to applications migrated to Amazon Web Services cloud. Along with migrating applications on servers, we also need to migrate databases. With the added power of supporting multiple database engines as well as automating many functions of DBAs and releasing the DBAs to focus on essential tasks, this has made it easier to switch to Amazon RDS.

The initial setup will be complex. You and your team need to understand the complexities of setting up IAM, security groups, AMIs, VPCs, autoscaling/loadbalancing, and RDS, then plan for multiple availability zones for disaster and recovery. You also need to set up an infrastructure admin and infrastructure support team who will work closely with the AWS team. You do not want your entire development to get involved with setting up the infrastructure. Your administrators and infrastructure team need to set it up, then guide the development team on how to utilize the infrastructure.

The initial vendor team could help to set up the infrastructure, team organization, etc. Then, your in-house team can carry out the administration and support work as well as the day-to-day tasks, such as providing access, helping developers make changes, uploading to the infrastructure, performing the migration, deployment, etc. The vendor team needs to have certified, experienced consultants to set up the infrastructure.

Work with Amazon Pre-Sales team and have them present their products to your organization. They will help you to arrive at building a business case, PoCs, SLAs, contracts, etc. You will also need to set up a product support team along with the migration, deployment, and core AWS Infrastructure Administrator teams who will be essential to the success of the project.

This is where the product stands apart. You do not need to set up thousands of servers, hundreds of database, and hundreds of DBAs. You need to set up a minimal infrastructure. There is no need to pay upfront the cost of an entire data center. It is pay as-you-go. Therefore, you realize the benefits and scale up/down as needed. Amazon will provide the required capacity. This will help you to realize the ROI quickly, which helps you to keep on growing.

This has helped reduce the cost at the same time increasing the agility of the organization. Some thing which would have costed millions of dollars and nine DBAs could easily be replaced by Amazon RDS.

By using a combination of Reserve Instances and On-Demand pricing, you can reduce the cost.

The main reason to migrate to the cloud comes from moving the underutilized. Variable demand applications moving to the cloud benefit from a cost savings as well as when they move from data center maintenance to building the core business capabilities. The application migration and database migration to AWS also provides an added advantage.

For new/existing customers building new products, such as Ola, Uber, or Swiggy, instead of building their own data center first and launching the product which involves massive costs, AWS offers a better quality solution if they are unsure about whether their product will succeed in the market. They can build the product, start making money, and utilize the pay-as-you-go model. Then, they can scale the product depending on demand utilization. That appears to be the best business case for Amazon Web Services.

We have cloud infra and development teams and my job with this solution is to move them to a cloud architecture, so I create a migration plan for Database from on-premises to AWS Cloud , co-ordinate with teams to host the planned RDS solutions and provide support for post cloud hosting challenges for better customer experience. 

Few minutes to launch RDS, DR, HA and monitoring configurations which reduced the administrative task and by the approach of pay for what we use reduced the cost. Performance is good when both Web application and DB are in same cloud. Need to be have In depth understanding of cost, else we are in position to pay more, which makes us to think our own DB is better when cost is very huge amount.  

The most valuable feature is that it is a fully managed database, where they handle most of the administrative tasks and leaves the users more time to concentrate on business.

The fact that it is fully managed has some disadvantages, as well. I have worked on SQL Server, Oracle, and other RDBMS systems for more than 20 years. In many of these cases, I have been an administrator and required administrative privileges to perform many of the tasks that I did. As I now work on a fully managed and maintained database, it is taking me longer to figure out how to perform these same operations that I was used to doing on-premises. Essentially, having a great deal of experience as an RDBMS administrator has made it harder for me to move forward when working on a database that is fully managed. It would be helpful if they made it easier to migrate from an existing on-premises solution to the cloud-based service.

Technical support could use some improvement.

I have been using Amazon RDS for five years.

The stability of this solution is good. We did have a couple of problems last year when the database was absconded, but luckily we had snapshots available. They take six backups daily and we were able to easily restore. We did not suffer any data loss.

I make use of this solution on a daily basis, especially over the past few years. We are migrating and I do work on the on-premises data centers, which is our core area. But, from a cost perspective, we are working towards hosting our business entirely in AWS.

The scalability of Amazon RDS is very good.

We have between 5,000 and 6,000 users.

We have contacted technical support over several issues and use cases. We build a use case and they suggest solutions. I do like them, but each use case is different and I have seen a lot of room for them to improve over time.

We initially deployed Amazon RDS on-premises, although we are now migrating to cloud-based deployment. Spinning up a task is very easy and there is no maintenance. There are no administrative tasks involved for us because it is entirely taken care of. This includes monitoring and backup, as well.

The length of time for deployment depends on the size of the database. If they say it is one gigabyte then it will take a few minutes.

We have technical people who are certified and handle the deployment in-house.

Good amount of cost reduction in cloud but we need to have well defined monitoring rules to save cost even after hosted in cloud. You can scale-up and scale-down with minimal duration compare to on-prem DB Servers. Which add more cost benefits. 

We can BYOL (Bring Your Own License), if you already purchased for Microsoft SQL Server or for Oracle and use that during RDS launch. 

If you need to reduce licensing cost in database , we can migrate to 3 open source databases in AWS RDS : MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB.

Amazon Aurora RDS , which is compatible to MySQL Engine and PostgreSQL Engine can be used to get most benefit of RDS managed service with performance and cost since it is AWS native RDS.

We have reached the stage where all of our critical applications are hosted on-premises, and the rest is hosted with a public cloud provider. We found that at one stage, it was more advantageous to store some of our core data in our own data centers and have the rest managed.

My advice for people who are implementing this solution is to keep in mind that they need to redefine their product. It is not just a copy of an on-premises solution. Rather, it is designed with cloud architecture in mind. We use the term Cloud Adaptiveness. This means that before moving, they need to make sure that the architect of that application, the business owner, and the database administrator all realize that they are going to be migrating to the cloud. They will need to make some modifications before it happens. Otherwise, if they try to do it post-migration, it will be more difficult.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

This product is used primarily for storing data. The process is you have to reserve RDS space and then you can install any database scheme you want, for example, MariaDB, SQL or Aurora. We typically use Aurora DB. 

The solution has proven to be quite stable so far.

The product is very, very easy to use.

The only thing that I can say is, you have to be really careful about the Cloud provision plannings - meaning that you should calculate the cost carefully due to the fact that the bill is increased sharply if you increase the limit. You have to provision what you need per month.

The solution charges for technical support, which is something they should change, at least for those organizations on tier one.

We've only been using this solution for six months. It's been less than a year. We haven't been using it for too long just yet.

We've found this solution to be very stable. It's reliable. We don't really deal with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. So far, it's been very good.

The solution is fully scalable. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so with ease.

Everyone in our organization uses the product. It's pretty widespread. The idea is you save your data on Cloud and make it available to everybody, add it to your website.

We plan to continue to use this service, at least over the next year or so.

Technical support is not ideal. It's one of Amazon's pain points.

Amazon offers a free service tier, a so-called free tier for start-ups. We are a start-up. By the time that you sign up with Amazon, you're connected to the free tier, however, for some reason, you don't have access to the support.

You can only get access from the sales support. That means if you want to buy something or renew your subscription or upgrade, all these services are easily available. Yet, if you would like to get some technical support, you have to pay for it. You have to pay for an additional subscription. It's really too bad.

Everybody using cloud computing needs technical support at some point, so this jeopardizes the original promise of the free tier. If you have to pay for any given question to the technical department, it is not free anymore. That's really a drawback in terms of Amazon's service. 

There are alternatives to RDS, and therefore you can use another type of cloud computing if you like. However, I haven't used any.

While, with all services of Amazon, there is a starter option that is given for free, this starter offer is not enough for the development or the deployment of products. Each time you pass these limits, you have to pay and it's completely unpredictable.

The pricing can get very expensive. You pay a standard price, which is low, for a fixed reservation. However, if you exceed your limit, instantly, then the bill is increased tremendously. That's a drawback for the system. You have to provision very carefully and to make sure that you do not exceed the limit.

That said, after careful provisioning, it is a very cheap option. If you are successful at cloud provisioning, you won't need to pay much.

You do have to pay extra for technical support, even if you are on the free service tier.

Despite the issues around pricing and technical support, RDS is a good choice for organizations due to the fact that it's very easy to use. I'd recommend it to others due to this ease of use and general stability.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten. If they had a free technical support tier I might rate it higher.

RDS provides deployment agility and an on-demand database-as-a-service for MySQL, Oracle, and SQL servers.

With RDS, everything is turnkey and always available. For example, due to the inherent multi-availability zone feature of AWS, there is no downtime at all and you can count on AWS RDS to always be available.

For many of the Pythian customers, one salient benefit, among other benefits, is the option of spinning up a new instance whenever it is needed. Now it can be done with a few clicks, without much ado.

RDS doesn't have shell access. This could be beneficial, especially for Oracle databases.

One benefit of having shell access with RDS is that DBAs or developers could keep their own existing scripts. Especially in the case of non-enterprise versions, there is always a need to dig into performance issues and their troubleshooting. So shell access could be very handy in that case and in some other cases.

I have been using AWS RDS for the last two years.

We have not really had stability issues.

The technical support is good and prompt.

For many clients of Pythian, it’s an amalgamation of on-premises and cloud. Pythian enables its customers to reap the benefits of both worlds.

With the expertise and experience of Pythian, the initial setup was a breeze.

Read the fine print carefully and always engage experts to carry out migration.

We did not evaluate any alternatives.

Having your database on RDS doesn't mean that you don't need a DBA anymore. Mission critical and important databases must be handled by a DBA, even if the database resides on the cloud, like RDS.