What is Aurora Serverless ?
Amazon Aurora Serverless is a version of Amazon Aurora that automatically starts, scales, and stops database capacity based on your application’s needs. It’s a fully managed service that is designed to make it easy to run a relational database in the cloud without the need for provisioning or managing any infrastructure.
One of the main benefits of Aurora Serverless is that it automatically scales the database up and down based on the number of requests it receives, allowing you to pay only for the resources you use. This means that you don’t need to worry about over-provisioning or under-provisioning your database, as Aurora Serverless will automatically adjust its capacity to match your needs.
Aurora Serverless also provides automatic failover and self-healing capabilities, making it a highly available and fault-tolerant option for running a database in the cloud. Additionally, it offers features like automatic backups, software patching, and performance metrics so that you can monitor the performance of your database.
Aurora Serverless is available for MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible editions. It’s a good fit for applications that have variable or unpredictable workloads, as well as for applications that experience infrequent or intermittent usage, such as dev/test environments, small websites, or mobile/IoT backends.
It’s worth mentioning that while Aurora Serverless is designed to automatically scale and manage capacity, It can also be configured to use a specific minimum or maximum capacity, or to automatically pause and resume capacity during specific periods of the day.
Aurora Serverless vs Aurora
Amazon Aurora and Amazon Aurora Serverless are both fully managed relational database services offered by AWS, but they differ in how they handle scaling and capacity management. Here is a comparison of some key features between the two:
| Feature | Amazon Aurora | Amazon Aurora Serverless |
|---|---|---|
| Scaling | Manual scaling of instances | Automatic scaling of capacity |
| Performance | Performance is consistent | Performance can be impacted by automatic scaling |
| Capacity Management | Predefined capacity | Pay per use based on actual capacity used |
| High availability | Built-in, with automatic failover | Built-in, with automatic failover |
| Compatible with other AWS services | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud native service | Yes, fully managed by AWS | Yes, fully managed by AWS |
| Cost | Pay a fixed rate for provisioned capacity | Pay for actual capacity used |
| Suitable use cases | Applications with steady and consistent traffic and predictable workload | Applications with variable or unpredictable workloads, infrequent or intermittent usage. |
Amazon Aurora is a traditional relational database service, where you provision and pay for a fixed amount of capacity, regardless of whether you’re using it all or not. This can be useful for applications that have steady and consistent traffic, and predictable workloads.
On the other hand, Amazon Aurora Serverless automatically scales the database’s capacity up or down based on the number of requests it receives, so you pay for the resources you actually use. It’s a good fit for applications that have variable or unpredictable workloads, or experience infrequent or intermittent usage, such as dev/test environments, small websites, or mobile/IoT backends.
It’s also worth mentioning that while Aurora Serverless is designed to automatically scale and manage capacity, It can also be configured to use a specific minimum or maximum capacity, or to automatically pause and resume capacity during specific periods of the day.
Here is a comparison of some key features between the two:
| Feature | Amazon Aurora | Amazon Aurora Serverless |
|---|---|---|
| Scaling | Manual scaling of instances | Automatic scaling of capacity |
| Performance | Performance is consistent | Performance can be impacted by automatic scaling |
| Capacity Management | Predefined capacity | Pay per use based on actual capacity used |
| High availability | Built-in, with automatic failover | Built-in, with automatic failover |
| Compatible with other AWS services | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud native service | Yes, fully managed by AWS | Yes, fully managed by AWS |
| Cost | Pay a fixed rate for provisioned capacity | Pay for actual capacity used |
| Suitable use cases | Applications with steady and consistent traffic and predictable workload | Applications with variable or unpredictable workloads, infrequent or intermittent usage. |
Amazon Aurora is a traditional relational database service, where you provision and pay for a fixed amount of capacity, regardless of whether you’re using it all or not. This can be useful for applications that have steady and consistent traffic, and predictable workloads.
On the other hand, Amazon Aurora Serverless automatically scales the database’s capacity up or down based on the number of requests it receives, so you pay for the resources you actually use. It’s a good fit for applications that have variable or unpredictable workloads, or experience infrequent or intermittent usage, such as dev/test environments, small websites, or mobile/IoT backends.
It’s also worth mentioning that while Aurora Serverless is designed to automatically scale and manage capacity, It can also be configured to use a specific minimum or maximum capacity, or to automatically pause and resume capacity during specific periods of the day.