Amazon Relational Database re:Invent 2022 recap

We recently wrapped up another successful edition of re:Invent, AWS’s flagship cloud event of the year, offering cloud computing enthusiasts an opportunity to hear the latest in cloud technology, as well as get hands-on training from the experts, and hear directly from leaders across the AWS organization. At this year’s re:Invent, AWS announced several exciting new product and program launches. In this post, we offer a summary of key Amazon Relational Database announcements.

Noteworthy launches 

1\ Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) now supports Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments to help you with safer, simpler, and faster updates to your Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS databases. Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments create a fully-managed staging environment that allows you to deploy and test production changes, keeping your current production database safe. Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments is now available for Amazon Aurora with MySQL compatibility 5.6 and higher, Amazon RDS for MySQL 5.7 and higher, and Amazon RDS for MariaDB 10.2 and higher. Learn more about Amazon Blue/Green Deployments on the Amazon RDS features page and AWS News Blog.

2\ Amazon Aurora zero-ETL integration with Amazon Redshift enables near real-time analytics and machine learning (ML) using Amazon Redshift on petabytes of transactional and operational data from Aurora. Within seconds of transactional data being written into Aurora, the data is available in Amazon Redshift. Customers don’t have to build and maintain complex data pipelines to perform extract, transform, and load (ETL) operations to move data from Aurora to Redshift. Amazon Aurora zero-ETL integration with Amazon Redshift is available in limited preview for Amazon Aurora MySQL 3 with MySQL 8.0 compatibility in the US East (N. Virginia) Region. Sign up for requesting access to the preview.

3\Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL is a new open source development kit to help customers build high performance extensions that run safely on PostgreSQL. Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL allows developers to more productively create high performance database extensions using popular trusted languages, like JavaScript, Perl, and PL/pgSQL. Refer to Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS documentation to learn how to use Trusted Language Extensions.

4\ Amazon GuardDuty RDS Protection, currently in preview, profiles and monitors access activity in Aurora databases and uses tailored ML models to accurately detect suspicious logins. Once a potential threat is detected, GuardDuty generates a security finding that includes database details and rich contextual information on the suspicious activity, is integrated with Aurora for direct access to database events without requiring you to modify your databases, and is designed to not affect database performance. To get started, refer to Amazon GuardDuty RDS Protection User Guide documentation and Monitoring threats with GuardDuty RDS Protection documentation.

5\ Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for MySQL now supports Amazon RDS Optimized Reads for up to 50% faster query processing compared to previous generation instances. Complex queries that utilize temporary tables, such as queries involving sorts, hash aggregations, high-load joins, and Common Table Expressions (CTEs) can now execute up to 50% faster with Optimized Reads on RDS for MySQL. To learn more about the Amazon RDS Optimized Reads feature on Amazon RDS for MySQL, refer to the Amazon RDS for MySQL User Guide. You can launch a new Optimized Read Workload with Amazon RDS for MySQL in the Amazon RDS Management Console or using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

6\ Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for MySQL now supports Amazon RDS Optimized Writes. This lets you improve write throughout by up to 2x at no additional cost. This is especially useful for Amazon RDS for MySQL customers with write-intensive database workloads, commonly found in applications such as digital payments, financial trading, and online gaming. Learn more about Amazon RDS Optimized Writes in the Amazon RDS features page, Amazon RDS User Guide, and in the AWS News Blog. Create a fully-managed Amazon RDS for MySQL database with Optimized Writes in the Amazon RDS Management Console.

To further deepen your understanding of AWS’s relational database launches and technologies, we are sharing recordings of some of the key sessions presented at re:Invent.

Recorded sessions

Keynote: With Swami Sivasubramanian VP of AWS Data and Machine Learning

Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of AWS Data and Machine Learning, gave the keynote at re:Invent. In his address, Swami talks about his vision for building a future-proof data foundation that is critical to gaining a competitive edge, and how AWS is making significant strides by deepening integration between services.

Your data: How you need it, where you need it, when you need it: With Jeff Carter VP of Databases and Migrations 

Organizations at the forefront of digital transformation are using modern application architectures like microservices as adaptive mechanisms for delivering value to customers at high velocity. Data is subject to the tremendous force of data gravity, often in the form of one-size-fits-all databases that represent an obstacle rather than a conduit for agility and velocity. In this session, Jeff Carter, VP of Databases and Migrations at AWS, describes how AWS purpose-built data services can overcome these challenges and shares a vision for achieving “data anti-gravity.” Hear how Disney and Intuit migrated to multiple AWS fully-managed databases to build faster and scale further than previously possible.

Amazon Blue/Green Deployments, Optimized Reads, and Optimized Writes

Some of the most important considerations you may have when picking a database include reliability, durability, and availability. Amazon RDS, a fully managed service that allows you to launch an optimally configured relational database in the cloud with just a few clicks, provides you with these benefits and more. In this session, dive deep into the newest capabilities available on RDS for MySQL. Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments provides safe and simple database updates in as fast as a minute and with zero data loss. Amazon RDS Optimized Writes improves write transaction throughput by up to 2 times at no additional cost. Amazon RDS Optimized Reads provides faster database performance with up to 50% faster query processing.

Amazon GuardDuty RDS Protection (preview)

Database security is important and there are certain best practices you should always follow to secure your databases. In this session, learn about Amazon GuardDuty and its latest extension called GuardDuty RDS Protection that profiles and monitors access activity to existing and new databases in your account, and uses tailored machine learning models to accurately detect suspicious logins to Aurora databases.

Build scalable multi-tenant databases with Amazon Aurora

In this session, dive deep into Amazon Aurora capabilities, including Amazon Aurora Serverless v2, read replicas, Aurora global databases, and Amazon RDS Proxy, and learn how it can help you build cost-efficient and scalable multi-tenant databases. Discover how Amazon Aurora helped VMware Aria Cost powered by CloudHealth (formerly CloudHealth) consolidate 166 self-managed MySQL databases on 62 Aurora clusters and achieve operational and cost efficiency along the way.

Deep dive into Amazon Aurora and its innovations

With an innovative architecture that decouples compute from storage as well as offers advanced features like Global Database and low-latency read replicas, Amazon Aurora reimagines what it means to be a relational database. This session dives deep into some of the most exciting features Aurora offers, including Aurora Serverless v2 and Global Database. Also learn about recent innovations that enhance performance, scalability, and security, while reducing operational challenges.

Deep dive into Amazon RDS for SQL Server innovation, featuring iCIMS

Amazon RDS for SQL Server is a fully-managed database service that lets you launch an optimally configured, secure, and highly available database with just a few clicks. It manages time-consuming database administration tasks, freeing you to focus on your applications and business. In this session, iCIMS shares their modernization story and choice to migrate over 3,500 databases to Amazon RDS for SQL Server to support their growing customer base.

Enable operational analytics w/Amazon Aurora and Amazon Redshift

Companies increasingly need near real-time analytics on operational data to better understand their customers and core business drivers to improve user experience and optimize business processes. In this session, dive deep into a new feature for Amazon Aurora, which supports zero-ETL integration with Amazon Redshift. Learn how this new no-code integration between Amazon Aurora and Amazon Redshift enables near real-time analytics and machine learning on petabytes of transactional data.

Introducing Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL

One reason for PostgreSQL’s growing popularity is its feature-rich extensions. However, installing extensions can introduce software defects that can corrupt data or crash a database. In this session, learn about Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL, a new open-source project that allows users to create new extensions using popular programming languages like Rust. With the Trusted Language Extensions feature for Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS, users can build and safely run high-performance PostgreSQL extensions.

Managed Oracle Databases w/Amazon RDS: New features and best practices

Amazon RDS for Oracle is a fully-managed relational database service that automates time-consuming database administration tasks while cost-effectively running Oracle Database workloads. Amazon RDS Custom for Oracle offers a shared responsibility model ideal for custom, packaged, and third-party applications that require customization of the underlying operating system and database environment. This session covers new features and best practices to make Oracle Database deployments highly available, scalable, secure, and manageable. Discover how companies, like Jefferies, are transforming their businesses with Amazon RDS.

Performance monitoring with Amazon RDS and Aurora, featuring Autodesk

Database performance monitoring is key for operating any mission-critical applications effectively. In this session, discover the monitoring capabilities provided by Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora. Learn how to use Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon RDS Enhanced Monitoring, Amazon RDS Performance Insights, and Amazon DevOps Guru for RDS to gain effective insights for your applications. Learn how Autodesk service teams improved application visibility and response time using AWS purpose-built databases and monitoring offerings.

S&P Dow Jones Indices’ AWS journey to Amazon Aurora

In this session, learn how migrating to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition and Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition helped S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI) scale, accelerate, and modernize their workloads. Discover the challenges SPDJI encountered during the migration journey, how they solved them, and the best practices they developed along the way. Learn how using AWS Schema Conversion Tool (AWS SCT) and AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) can streamline and accelerate migrations and improve migration outcomes.

Thomson Reuters and BMC Software database modernization vision with DMA

Thomson Reuters and BMC Software are leaders in the financial and ISV industries. In this session, learn why they chose Amazon Aurora and the AWS DMA to accelerate their migration and modernization strategies. Thomson Reuters used AWS DMA’s fixed-fee service in a multi-wave migration (7 data centers, 400 databases), while BMC Software used AWS DMA’s advisory services to expedite their migration plan by a year.

We hope you have enjoyed this post. Visit https://reinvent.awsevents.com/ to learn more about AWS re:Invent. Subscribe to more AWS videos and other event videos.

About the author

Sishir Sekaran is a Senior Product Manager at AWS.