Q. What is Amazon Aurora?
Amazon Aurora is a MySQL-compatible relational database engine that combines the speed and availability of high-end commercial databases, such as Oracle, with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases such as MySQL.
Q. Why should I migrate data to Amazon Aurora?
Amazon Aurora is a cost-effective and fully-managed service that provides security, availability, and reliability of a commercial database, at one-tenth the cost. Amazon Aurora is also compatible with Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), a service that handles time-consuming tasks such as provisioning, patching, and backup, recovery, failure detection, and repair.
Q: What is Amazon Database Migration Service (Amazon DMS) and what are the benefits of using it for migration?
Amazon Database Migration Service (Amazon DMS) is a low-cost service to help you migrate databases to Amazon Web Services easily and securely. Replication tasks can be set up in minutes instead of hours or days, compared to self-managed replication solutions that have to be installed and configured. Amazon DMS data replication integrates tightly with the Amazon Schema Conversion Tool, simplifying heterogeneous database migration projects such as Oracle to Aurora.
Q: What is the Amazon Schema Conversion Tool (SCT)?
The Amazon Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) makes heterogeneous database migrations easy by automatically converting the source database schema from Oracle and a majority of the custom code, including views, stored procedures, and functions, to a format compatible with the target database such as Aurora. Any code that cannot be automatically converted is clearly marked so that it can be manually converted.
Q: In which Amazon Web Services regions are Amazon Aurora and Amazon DMS service available?
Please see Amazon Aurora and Amazon DMS documentation for availability, before launching this project.
Q: What is a CloudFormation stack?
A CloudFormation stack is a collection of Amazon Web Services resources that you can manage as a single unit. The resources in a stack are defined by the stack's CloudFormation template. In this project, you will use a CloudFormation stack to create and provision the Amazon VPC, subnets, security groups, and Amazon RDS instances you need to complete the databse migration from Oracle to Aurora. After completion of the project, you can easily delete the stack to avoid incurring additional charges.
Q: Can I customize the CloudFormation template used in this project?
Yes. The CloudFormation template is designed to obtain a few inputs from the user and provision the required Amazon Web Services services with minimum configurations. However, if you would like to amend some of the configurations such as Amazon VPC CIDR block, Amazon RDS instance types, etc., you can update the template and launch it.
Q. Does Amazon DMS and SCT support migration of complex database schemas?
Yes. This project helps in understanding the methodology to be used for heterogeneous database migrations using a simple schema structure. This experience can aid in the migration of complex database scenarios.
Q. Does Amazon DMS service support only full-data migration, as illustrated in this project?
No. You can use Amazon DMS for one-time full-data migration, as well as continuous data replication (CDC). Amazon DMS captures changes on the source database and applies them in a transactionally-consistent way to the target. The only change you need to do is in the Task settings. Create a new task with CDC enabled, and then the data replication task will run until you change or terminate it.