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AWS Database Migration Service

aws.amazon.com

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Re: AWS Database Migration Service

#41

Post by Stasis5001 »

nkozyra wrote: post #37
Johnny555 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the vendor lets you export your data in a form that you can easily import into your own copy of the exact same software, I fail to see how that is "lock-in". If the vendor increase the cost of the service or changes other terms in a way that's unfavorable to you, you can easily leave, that's the opposite of lock-in. You can't really accuse a vendor of lock in just because his product is priced lower than it woul…

I think that's a very rigid definition of "lock-in" that implies it must be done with some anti-competitive malice. That's not how I've encountered the term in my past, so I'm welcome to other interpretations. Per (not authoritative, obviously) wiki: "In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use ano…

That definition makes it very clear why people are disagreeing with you. Switching costs are those incurred by the difficulty of switching, and not the marginal cost of one provider or another. If internet provider A is $80 / month, and provider B is $60 / month, the switching cost has nothing to do with the $20 monthly discrepancy, or any speed differences, and rather represents how easy it is to cancel my subscription by being on hold for hours or cancellation fees.

Re: AWS Database Migration Service

#42

Post by tbrock »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #34
tehalex wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can migrate in our out of AWS, but one or both of your endpoints needs to be on AWS.

I wonder if you could realistically do a two stage migration, X -> Amazon -> Y

Amazon probably wouldn't care if you did. They still get paid to shuffle the bits.

Re: AWS Database Migration Service

#44

Post by stakecounter »

Xorlev wrote: post #39
stakecounter wrote: post #35

One feature that I wish was supported in RDS is to migrate from a MySQL engine to Aurora engine without having to create new database instance at all. It looks like Amazon DMS makes this process easier, but since Aurora is fully compatible with MySQL, I don't see why I have to create a new database instance and point my application to talk to the new server when Amazon DMS could do this behind the scenes on the one I…

You can snapshot your RDS database and restore it as an Aurora DB. Only caveat is it has to be MySQL 5.6. http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Aurora...

Not quite the same, unless I'm misunderstanding. I'm talking about an online migration on a single RDS instance with an engine switch handled fully behind the scenes. The link provided doesn't seem to handle data changes since the snapshot, and also requires a switch in the application to point to the new instance which has been restored via snapshot.

DMS gets closer than the above link, I think, since it will handle replication onto the target database for you. But, for two fully compatible database engines, it seems like you should be able to make the switch without having to fuss with replication configuration or spinning up a new instance at all.

Re: AWS Database Migration Service

#45

Post by grapehut »

One of the biggest problems I've had with RDS (postgres specifically) is not being able to do incremental offsite backups. I wonder if the database migration service can help with that, as they say the process is "reliable" and "automatically restarts the process and continues the migration from where it was halted"

Re: AWS Database Migration Service

#46

Post by manigandham »

nkozyra wrote: post #26
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not a whole lot of lock-in using an rds instance. It's MySQL.

... with automatically managed updates, backups, monitoring, auto-scaling, auto-replication ... The managed services are a huge part of the lock-in with AWS services, because even though they generally cost more than the competitors, they can often come out equal after accounting for those aggregate hours lost to doing those things.

Lock-in refers to the effect of being unable to change vendors due to switching costs. This can be things like a large amount of effort/money required that a company just cant afford or sometimes the lack of any other vendor who can even offer the same product or service.

In this case, there is basically 0 switching cost since relational databases are everywhere and you can always take your data/schema with you. This new migration service actually makes it even easier than before.

There is no lock-in.

Re: AWS Database Migration Service

#47

Post by akurilin »

znep wrote: post #10
drewpc wrote: post #5

Looks like this could be a better way to migrate between major versions of PostgreSQL on RDS than rolling your own.

If you didn't catch it, AWS now supports upgrades between so-called "major versions" (eg. 9.3 -> 9.4). https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2015/11/rds-postg...

Folks in the know claim that in-place major version upgrades are unadvisable, as it's not a super heavily tested area of postgres development and in the worst case scenario you might end up with unwanted side-effects in the data that can go uncaught for a while.

Re: AWS Database Migration Service

#48

Post by manigandham »

nkozyra wrote: post #37
Johnny555 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the vendor lets you export your data in a form that you can easily import into your own copy of the exact same software, I fail to see how that is "lock-in". If the vendor increase the cost of the service or changes other terms in a way that's unfavorable to you, you can easily leave, that's the opposite of lock-in. You can't really accuse a vendor of lock in just because his product is priced lower than it woul…

I think that's a very rigid definition of "lock-in" that implies it must be done with some anti-competitive malice. That's not how I've encountered the term in my past, so I'm welcome to other interpretations. Per (not authoritative, obviously) wiki: "In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use ano…

Operational costs != switching costs.

You can backup/restore and run your database on basically any hosted service so switching costs are trivial here.

Re: AWS Database Migration Service

#50

Post by brobinson »

CaveTech wrote: post #20
aidos wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to run a read replica outside of RDS these days?

Some RDS flavors now support offsite replication, it's quite easy to set up.

Do you know if PostgreSQL is included in that list? Can I just pg_basebackup to start up a read slave?
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