- Benefits:
AWS Database Migration Service is easy to use. There are no drivers or applications to install, and in most cases, no changes to the source database are required. You can initiate a database migration with just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console. Once the migration begins, the DMS handles all the complexities of this process, including automatically replicating data changes that occur to the source database during the migration process. You can also use this service for continuous data replication with the same simplicity.
AWS Database Migration Service helps you migrate your databases to AWS with virtually no downtime. Any changes made to the source database during the migration are continuously replicated to the target, allowing the source database to remain fully operational while the migration takes place. Once the migration is complete, the target database will remain synchronized with the source for as long as you determine, allowing your database transition to occur at the most opportune time.
Compatible with widely used databases.
AWS Database Migration Service can migrate data to and from most popular commercial and open-source databases. It enables homogeneous migrations, such as from Oracle to Oracle, as well as heterogeneous migrations between different database platforms, such as from Oracle to Amazon Aurora. Migrations can occur from on-premises databases to Amazon RDS or Amazon EC2, databases running on EC2 to RDS, or vice versa, as well as from one RDS database to another RDS database. Additionally, it can also migrate data between SQL, NoSQL, and text-based targets.
AWS Database Migration Service is a low-cost service. You only pay for the computing resources used during the migration process and any additional log storage. Database migrations in the terabyte range can be performed starting at $3 USD. This applies to both homogeneous and heterogeneous migrations from any supported database. This is in stark contrast to conventional database migration methods, which can be very expensive.
You can configure a DMS task for either one-time migration or continuous replication. A continuous replication task keeps the source and target databases synchronized. Once configured, the continuous replication task will continuously apply changes from the source to the target with minimal latency. All DMS features, such as transformations and data validation, are available for any replication task.
The AWS Database Migration Service is highly resilient and self-healing. It continuously monitors the source and destination databases, network connectivity, and the replication instance. In the event of an interruption, it automatically restarts the process and continues the migration from where it left off. The Multi-Availability Zone (AZ) option enables high availability for database migration and continuous data replication by enabling redundant replication instances.
– Use cases.
- Homogeneous database migrations.
In homogeneous database migrations, the source and target database engines are the same or compatible, such as Oracle to Amazon RDS for Oracle, MySQL to Amazon Aurora, MySQL to Amazon RDS for MySQL, or Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. Because the schema structure, data types, and database code are compatible between the source and target databases, this type of migration is a one-step process. You create a migration job with connections between the source and target databases and then initiate the migration with the click of a button. AWS Database Migration Service handles the rest. The source database can be located on your own premises outside of AWS, running on an Amazon EC2 instance, or it can be an Amazon RDS database. The destination can be a database on either Amazon EC2 or Amazon RDS.
- Heterogeneous database migrations.
In heterogeneous database migrations, the mechanisms of the source and target databases are different, as in the case of migrations from Oracle to Amazon Aurora, Oracle to PostgreSQL, or Microsoft SQL Server to MySQL. In this case, the schema structure, data types, and code of the source and target databases can be quite different, requiring a schema and code transformation before starting the data migration. This makes heterogeneous migrations a two-step process. First, use the AWS Schema Conversion Tool to convert the schema and source code to match those of the target database, then use the AWS Database Migration Service to migrate data from the source database to the target database. AWS Database Migration Service will automatically perform all necessary data type conversions during the migration. The source database can be located on your own premises outside of AWS, running on an Amazon EC2 instance, or it can be an Amazon RDS database. The destination database can be a database on either Amazon EC2 or Amazon RDS.
The AWS Database Migration Service can be used to migrate data in and out of the cloud for development purposes. There are two common scenarios. The first is to deploy development, test, or staging systems on AWS to take advantage of the cloud's scalability and rapid provisioning. This way, developers and testers can use copies of the actual production data and can copy updates to the local production system. The second scenario is when development systems are local (usually on personal laptops), and you migrate an updated copy of a production database in the AWS Cloud to those local systems once or on an ongoing basis. This avoids disrupting existing DevOps processes and ensures an up-to-date representation of your production system.
You can use AWS Database Migration Service to consolidate multiple source databases into a single destination database. This can be done for both homogeneous and heterogeneous migrations, and you can use this feature with all supported database engines. The source databases can be located on your premises outside of AWS, running on an Amazon EC2 instance, or they can be Amazon RDS databases. The source databases can also be distributed across different locations. For example, one of the source databases can be located on your premises outside of AWS, while the second is on Amazon EC2, and the third is on an Amazon RDS database. The destination can be a database on either Amazon EC2 or Amazon RDS.
- Continuous data replication.
You can use AWS Database Migration Service to perform continuous data replication. Continuous data replication has numerous use cases, including instance synchronization for disaster recovery, geographic database distribution, and development/test environment synchronization. You can use DMS for homogeneous and heterogeneous data replication for all supported database engines. The source or target databases can be located on-premises outside of AWS, running on an Amazon EC2 instance, or they can be Amazon RDS databases. You can replicate data based on a single database to one or more target databases, or consolidate and replicate data based on multiple source databases to one or more target databases.
