1. Relational Databases (SQL)
Amazon RDS (PaaS): AWS manages the OS, patching, and backups for MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, etc. Supports Multi-AZ (automatic standby replica in another data center for disaster recovery) and Read Replicas (copies to speed up read traffic).
Amazon Aurora: AWS’s custom-built database. Compatible with MySQL/PostgreSQL but 5x faster and highly durable.
AWS DMS (Database Migration Service): Safely migrates your on-premise databases to AWS with minimal downtime.
2. NoSQL & Caching
Amazon DynamoDB: A fully managed NoSQL (Key-Value) database. Incredibly fast (single-digit milliseconds) and scales infinitely. Perfect for shopping carts, gaming leaderboards, and serverless apps.
Amazon ElastiCache: An in-memory cache (Redis or Memcached). Sits in front of your database to remember frequently requested data, taking the heavy load off your main database.
3. Data Warehousing & Specialty
Amazon Redshift: A petabyte-scale Data Warehouse used for complex Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics. Can use Redshift Spectrum to query data sitting directly in S3.
Specialty DBs: DocumentDB (MongoDB compatible), Neptune (Graph database for social networks), Timestream (Time-series data for IoT sensors).
Scenario Spotlight
Transition a 2 PB Data Warehouse to AWS? ➔ Amazon Redshift.
Need direct OS access to manage a MySQL server manually? ➔ EC2 (IaaS). (If you don’t want to manage the OS, use RDS).
Low latency DB for 1 million concurrent mobile game players? ➔ DynamoDB