Overview of AWS Relational Database Service (RDS) Features and Pricing

Instructor: [0:00] Now that we've got an overview of the different database options for AWS, let's talk a little bit more about RDS. RDS stands for Relational Database Services. This is where you're going to set up services like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server.

[0:17] This is what the Dashboard for RDS looks like. You can see your instances there. Then the other thing you're going to care about is this Create Database button right here. That's basically RDS from a high, high level. The things that you need to know about RDS are as follows.

[0:38] First, remember that RDS is for relational databases. If somebody says to you at work, "Hey, I need you to create a new SQL Server database," or MySQL database, this is where you're going to come. You're going to come to RDS and set that up.

[0:52] The other thing you need to remember about RDS is that they can get expensive. Databases can get very expensive because it's a combination of storage, uptime, availability.

[1:04] Lots of different things going on with databases, so please, remember to clean up after yourself. I've got a video here coming up that is going to be just about deleting the RDS database that we create, just so that you don't forget to do it.

[1:20] The last thing I need you to be aware of is that, if you start getting into RDS and setting up databases, some of the networking concepts are going to come up. For example, it's important for RDS databases to exist in different parts of the country so that, if one goes down, there's still a backup.

[1:38] AWS handles a lot of this by default for you. If you find yourself going down some rabbit holes, know that that's totally normal. You're going to be OK. There's plenty of resources out there that are going to help you work through that. I want you to have a little bit of a heads up.

[1:53] We're not going to have to worry about that in the next couple of videos because we're going to do everything with the default. When you're doing this stuff at work, know that some of this networking stuff might come up. You might hear words like subnet or availability zone and things like that. That's a fair warning for you there.

[2:14] With that said, let's go ahead and jump into RDS and create a database, just so you can see what that process looks like.