Migrate to Amazon Aurora (PostgreSQL and MySQL compatible)

Yes, absolutely. AWS Aurora is fully compatible with both MySQL and PostgreSQL. You can continue using your existing code, applications, and tools with some changes. So, you get the familiarity of the database engines you already know, but with the enhanced database performance and reliability of Aurora.

Amazon RDS is a service that makes it easier to set up and operate familiar database engines like standard MySQL or PostgreSQL in the cloud. Amazon Aurora is a custom-built and high-performance database engine that is also part of the RDS family but is optimized for the cloud.

The key differences are in performance, scalability opportunities, and cost-effectiveness:

• Aurora MySQL can be up to 5x faster than standard MySQL on RDS, and Aurora PostgreSQL can be up to 3x faster than standard PostgreSQL on RDS.
• Aurora has a more advanced self-healing storage system that automatically replicates your data across multiple locations for higher durability and faster recovery. It also offers features like Aurora Read Replicas, which have lower lag than traditional replication, so it's great for read-heavy workloads.
• Aurora might seem more expensive upfront, but its performance and storage efficiency often lead to lower costs for demanding applications compared to a similarly scaled RDS instance.

The general process for migrating your database to AWS Aurora has a few key stages. Whether you're coming from an on-premises MySQL, PostgreSQL database, or even a SQL Server database, the path shares common steps:

1. First, analyze your current database to understand its complexity and identify any potential challenges with a free assessment tool, InsightWays. This helps ensure a successful migration.
2. If you are moving from a different type of database (like SQL Server to Aurora PostgreSQL migration), you'll need to convert the schema (the structure of your tables and data) to be MySQL compatible or PostgreSQL compatible. You can do this with SQLWays.
3. The core step is migrating data. You can do this with SQLWays, too, to simplify the process and minimize downtime.
4. Thoroughly test your application with the new Aurora database to make sure everything works as expected.
5. Finally, you'll switch your application to point to the new Aurora database.

This is one of the most straightforward migration paths because AWS makes it very simple. You can essentially create an Amazon Aurora MySQL Read Replica from your existing RDS database for a MySQL database instance. Once the replication lag is zero, you can promote the Aurora Read Replica to become your new primary database and achieve the Aurora MySQL migration with almost no downtime.

Yes, you can. Since Aurora doesn't have a SQL Server-compatible edition, you would migrate your SQL Server database to Aurora PostgreSQL. This is a "heterogeneous" migration because you're moving between different database types. The process involves using the SQLWays schema conversion tool to automatically convert your SQL Server schema and code to a format that's compatible with PostgreSQL.

After the schema is converted, you use the same tool for migrating the actual data to the Aurora instance.