AWS Database Services

Question 1

Payment Options

Answer 1

On Demand: most expensive

Reserved Instances: Low up-front fee + discounted rate. 1-3 year terms.

All Upfront = largest discount

Partial upfront = low upfront fee plus discounted rate

No Upfront = discounted hourly rate for term. One year at a time only.

Question 2

What is a Read Replica?

Answer 2

Provide enhanced performance and durability for database (DB) instances. Creating Read Replicas across regions improves your disaster recovery capabilities and allows you to scale out globally.

Question 3

What are the two main categories of databases?

Answer 3

1. Relation (SQL): Stores related data in tables/rows. Typically used for very structured data.
2. Non-relation (NoSQL): Stores related data in JSON-like, name-value documents. Typically used for unstructured data

Question 4

What type of database does RDS provision?

Answer 4

Relational; RDS = Relational Database Service

Question 5

What type of database does DynamoDB provision?

Answer 5

NoSQL

Question 6

What Database engines are offered by AWS RDS?

Answer 6

1. Amazon Aurora
2. PostgreSQL
3. MySQL
4. MariaDB
5. Oracle
6. MS SQL Server

Question 7

What is RDS?

Answer 7

Web service that makes it easier to set up, operate, and scale a relational DB in the cloud.

RDS provides cost-efficient, resizable capacity while automating time consuming administration tasks such as hardware provisioning, database setup, patching and backups.

Question 8

What is Amazon Aurora?

Answer 8

Amazon’s own relational database engine offering. Supports both MySQL and PostgreSQL

Question 9

What is DynamoDB?

Answer 9

A fast and flexible NoSQL database service for all applications that need consistent, single-digit millisecond latency at any scale.It is a fully managed cloud database that supports both document and key-value store models.

Question 10

What are the different types of NoSQL databases?

Answer 10

1. Key-value
2. Document
3. Graph
4. In-memory
5. Search

Question 11

What are the uses & benefits of RDS?

Answer 11

1. Easy to set up, highly available, fault tolerant, and scalable
2. Used when data is clearly defined and you need a relational database
   - Common use cases include online stores and banking systems

Question 12

What are the uses & benefits of DynamoDB?

Answer 12

1. When data is fluid/can change and you need a non-relational database
2. Fast, highly scalable, and fully managed
   - Common use cases include web analytics and social networks

Question 13

What is ElastiCache?

Answer 13

Web service that makes it easy to deploy, operate, and scale an in-memory data store, or cache, in the cloud.

Question 14

What open source in-memory engines does ElastiCache support?

Answer 14

1. Redis

2. MemcacheD

Question 15

What is RedShift?

Answer 15

Fast, fully managed data warehouse that makes it simple and cost-effective to analyze all your data using standard SQL and your existing BI tools.

Question 16

What does RedShift do?

Answer 16

Allows you to run complex, analytic queries against petabytes of structured data using sophisticated query optimization, columnar storage on high-performance local disks, and massively parallel query execution.