AWS Database Migration Service
There are several situations when an organization might decide to migrate their databases from one to another, such as the need for better performance, enhanced security, or advanced features or to avoid licensing costs from vendors. If an organization wants to expand its business to a different geolocation, it will need to carry out database migration, disaster recovery improvements, and database sync in a cost-effective manner. AWS DMS allows you to leverage the benefits of scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency when migrating databases from an on-premises/EC2 instance/Amazon RDS to Amazon RDS or Amazon Aurora.
In scenarios where multiple databases need to be consolidated into a single database or data needs to be integrated across multiple databases, AWS DMS can be a valuable tool. AWS DMS is designed to move data from a source to a target provided one of the endpoints is on AWS:
- DMS supports both homogenous and heterogeneous database migrations, allowing you to migrate between different database engines, such as Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server.
- DMS simplifies the database migration process by handling schema conversion, data replication, and ongoing synchronization between the source and target databases.
- DMS supports both full-load and ongoing Change Data Capture (CDC) replication methods. Full-load migration copies the entire source database to the target, while CDC captures and replicates only the changes made after the initial load. For example, for a database migration with minimal downtime, DMS performs an initial full-load migration, followed by CDC replication to keep the target database up to date with changes in the source database.
- DMS provides a user-friendly console and API for the easy configuration, monitoring, and management of database migrations. It offers detailed logging and error handling to help diagnose and resolve migration issues. For example, during a migration from Oracle to Amazon Aurora, DMS can automatically convert Oracle-specific data types and modify table structures to align with the Aurora database schema.
- DMS supports continuous data replication, allowing you to keep the source and target databases in sync even after the initial migration. This is particularly useful in scenarios requiring ongoing data synchronization or database replication. An example is if a company maintains an active-active database setup for high availability, where DMS replicates data changes between multiple database instances located in different regions for real-time synchronization.
- DMS offers built-in validation and testing capabilities to ensure the integrity and consistency of the migrated data. It performs data validation checks and generates reports to verify the success of the migration process. For example, after migrating a large database from Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, DMS validates the migrated data by comparing row counts, data types, and other metrics to ensure data accuracy.
- DMS supports both one-time migrations and continuous replication for database consolidation and integration scenarios. It enables organizations to consolidate data from multiple databases into a single target database or distribute data across multiple databases as needed. For example, say a company with several subsidiary databases wants to consolidate all the data into a centralized database for unified reporting and analysis. DMS facilitates the migration and ongoing synchronization of data from multiple sources to the target database.
