MySQL is one of the most popular open source relational database in the world. RDS makes it easier to set up MySQL databases and deployments in the cloud and simplifies operations. RDS helps DBA’s to spend more time on developing their application instead of traditional DBA tasks like replications, monitoring of performance, storage scaling, backups, restorations, and software patching.
RDS now supports the community edition of MySQL versions 5.5, 5.6, 5.7 and 8.0. Basic applications, codes, scripts, and tools that are supported by MySQL are now supported by RDS for MySQL too. So, if you are planning to move your databases to cloud then RDS makes it easier for you. RDS is cost efficient and has flexible hardware capacity. You can deploy on premise databases to the AWS cloud in minutes.
Below are the new features that were added to RDS for MySQL in 2019.
Amazon RDS Performance Insights supports viewing more SQL text
- SQL Text in RDS for MySQL can display up to 1024 bytes of each row in the Top Load Items table for every SQL statement. In previous versions, the maximum was 500 bytes.
- Amazon RDS for MySQL Performance Insights now supports viewing more SQL Text.
Performance Insights counters
- Now you are able to add performance counters to performance Insights Charts for Oracle database instances.
- Performance Insights is a feature that monitors and adjusts the database performance. This makes it easy for a developer to troubleshoot the performance issue and helps to solve the issue.
- RDS for MySQL now supports Counter Metrics, which is a feature that allows you to add up to 10 extra graphs that visualize the OS and DB performance metrics. Counter metrics provides extra data that corresponds with the chart of the database load, which helps to identify and analye the DB performance.
Supports db.r5 DB instance classes
- r5 is a memory optimized DB instance with improved Amazon EBS performance and networking. This instance is brought in by AWS Nitro System with both lightweight hypervisor and dedicated hardware.
- The R5 instance type is now supported by Amazon RDS.
Supports db.t3 DB instance classes
- t3 is the latest generation burstable performance database instance class. It carries the feature full CPU Utilization and more computing capacity when compared to db.t2.
Support for minor versions of MySQL
- Minor versions of MySQL 5.7.25, 5.7.24 of 5.7 and 8.0.15 of 8.0 major version are now supported by Amazon RDS.
- These versions provide improvements in functionality.
Support for restoring 5.7 backups from Amazon S3
- This new feature will let you to create backup of databases of MySQL version 5.7.
- Backups can be stored into an Amazon S3 bucket and you can restore the backup file into the new Amazon RDS database instance running on MySQL.
Support for the MySQL password validation plugin
- For improved security, Amazon RDS provides password validation plugin “validate_password” for MySQL.
- This feature is available for versions 5.6, 5.7, 8.0 of RDS for MySQL.
- This feature has requirements to set a password, including certain characters and password length.
Supports Upgrade Prechecks
- When upgrading from a lower version of MySQL (ex:5.7) to higher version(ex:8.0), RDS will precheck for compatibilities and incompatibilities. If any incompatibilities are found, the upgrade will immediately stop.
- RDS generates a “PrePatchCompatibility” log file that holds the details about the incompatibilities. This will help you to review and take actions to avoid incompatibilities.
Support for 64 TiB and 80k IOPS of storage
- Amazon RDS lets you to create DB instances up to 80,000 provisioned IOPS
- Storage from 20TiB to 64TiB.
- This increase enables you to get one instance of database by combining database shards, making database management easier with zero downtime.
Support for Storage Auto Scaling
- About a month ago, RDS for MySQL started supporting auto scaling for RDS storage.
- What is Storage Auto Scaling? Scaling of storage capacity is flexible to improve database workloads with no downtime.
- Earlier storage capacity had to be provided manually based on assumptions for demands of applications. If less that the required storage capacity is provided, it can lead to downtime of applications. Excess storage capacity provision leads to unused resources and unnecessary costs.
- Auto scaling of storage helps to provide zero downtime and allows you to pay for only resources that you use.
If you’re using RDS for MySQL, let us know what you think of these updates!
