Database

AWS has a lot of data services, and the names alone don’t tell you what each one is for. This post is a mental map — how the database, analytics, and data-movement services fit together, and how to pick between them. The mental map ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ DATABASES (operational, low latency) │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ RDS relational SQL │ │ DynamoDB NoSQL key-value, serverless │ │ ElastiCache in-memory cache (Redis/Memcached) │ │ DocumentDB MongoDB-compatible document DB │ │ Neptune graph DB (nodes + edges) │ │ Timestream time-series DB │ │ Managed Blockchain Hyperledger/Ethereum │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ ANALYTICS (batch, big data, querying) │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Redshift data warehouse (columnar SQL at scale) │ │ EMR managed Hadoop/Spark cluster │ │ Athena SQL queries directly on S3 │ │ QuickSight BI dashboards/visualization │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ DATA MOVEMENT │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Glue managed ETL (extract/transform/load) │ │ DMS Database Migration Service │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Databases These are operational, low-latency stores — the databases an application reads and writes in real time....

RDS is a managed SQL database. AWS runs the database server — patching, backups, failover — and you just use it. It is where the structured data of an application lives. What RDS is A managed relational database: you pick an engine, and AWS does the operations. Supported engines: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server, and Aurora — AWS’s own MySQL/Postgres-compatible engine. You connect with standard SQL drivers (JDBC/ODBC) over a hostname and port....

CloudStack relies on two key databases — cloud and cloud_usage. Overview The CloudStack Management Server interacts continuously with a database backend. Every API call, VM operation, or event updates these databases. cloudstack-management │ ▼ MySQL Server ├── cloud └── cloud_usage Database Roles cloud The core operational database. Stores all configuration and runtime state. Key responsibilities: VM instances, volumes, and templates Networking, IP addresses, and VLANs User accounts, roles, and API keys Async jobs, events, and orchestration logs cloud_usage The usage and metering database....