Aurora Global Database

Aurora Global Database expands the horizons of traditional database architectures by allowing a single Amazon Aurora database to extend its reach across multiple AWS regions. This feature offers several benefits, including data replication with minimal impact on performance, fast local reads with low latency, and enhanced disaster recovery capabilities.

Understanding Replication Approach

Aurora Global Database achieves data replication through asynchronous replication between the storage layers of two regions. This approach ensures that data changes are efficiently propagated across regions, enabling real-time access to synchronized data.

Key Considerations

While Aurora Global Database offers compelling features, there are certain considerations to keep in mind:

  • Manual Failover: Automated failover to the secondary region is not supported in Global Database. Administrators must manually initiate failover procedures in the event of a regional outage.
  • Instance Type Limitations: Not all instance types are supported in Global Database. Specifically, db.t2 and db.t3 instance classes are not compatible.
  • Feature Limitations: Certain Aurora features, such as Backtrack, are not supported in Global Database configurations.
  • Cluster Management: Stopping and starting DB clusters within the global database setup is not supported, requiring careful planning and management of database operations.

Aurora Global Database in Action

Aurora offers two main configurations for cross-region replication:

  1. Aurora Cross Region Read Replicas: Ideal for scenarios where rapid recovery from significant issues is required. These replicas are easy to set up and provide additional read capacity.
  2. Aurora Global Database (Preferred Option):
    • Provides a primary database for read and write operations, along with up to five secondary regions for read-only access.
    • Each secondary region can maintain up to 16 copies of the data, ensuring high availability and redundancy.
    • By minimizing data transfer latency, Global Database enhances performance and responsiveness.
    • In the event of a regional failure, Aurora Global Database allows for seamless failover to an alternate region in less than a minute.
    • Data replication between regions typically occurs in less than a second, ensuring data consistency and integrity across the distributed architecture.

In summary, Aurora Global Database offers a scalable and resilient solution for distributing and managing databases across multiple regions, providing organizations with enhanced flexibility, performance, and disaster recovery capabilities.