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Aurora is I think pretty simple to move away from, since it's just fully compatible Postgres or Mysql. We even use a local postgres for development purposes aga

Aurora is I think pretty simple to move away from, since it's just fully compatible Postgres or Mysql. We even use a local postgres for development purposes against an Aurora solution.

Paul-Craft 3y ago
Nope. AWS makes it dead simple to move from RDS to Aurora by clicking a button. There's no way to move data from Aurora to RDS short of doing a SQL dump and reloading everything that way. I found this out when my previous employer was looking at moving from RDS to Aurora.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  > > Aurora is I think pretty simple to move away from, since it's just fully compatible Postgres or Mysql. We even use a local postgres for development purposes against an Aurora solution. > Nope. AWS makes it dead simple to move from RDS to Aurora by clicking a button. There's no way to move data from Aurora to RDS short of doing a SQL dump and reloading everything that way. I found this out when my previous employer was looking at moving from RDS to Aurora. I got a bit of a chuckle out of this. There's no way to move from Aurora to RDS short of... 2 minutes of actual work and a lot of waiting around due to the limitations of the hardware? I get that it's not as easy as a literal button click, but this isn't vendor lock in.
  - tough 3y ago
    What if you have a really big database? Still 2minutes?
    - manfre 3y ago
      I'm intentionally ignoring any of the sarcasm in your comment. The time needed for a db dump is always dependent upon the amount of data. This is true regardless of the db software or where it's running.
      - Ensorceled 3y ago
        I can't think of any project I've worked on where the main data base could be backed up and restored to a different database in "2 minutes" The sarcasm was warranted.
        re-thc 3y ago
        With SSO multi-account and 2FA, it'd probably take longer than 2 minutes just to authenticate and configure AWS correctly to get started.
        emodendroket 3y ago
        Isn’t the suggestion that the “active work” is very little and most of the time you’re just waiting?
        Ensorceled 3y ago
        Well, the elapsed time is how long I need production to be offline so there are a few more people "just waiting"
        emodendroket 3y ago
        Sure, but you don’t really expect to swap databases with a huge data store without any downtime, do you? I’m not aware of any technology that makes that easy.
        Ensorceled 3y ago
        Then why are you defending the ridiculous "2 minute" thing? If the CEO asked how long a migration will take would you respond "2 minutes of engineering time"?
        emodendroket 3y ago
        In that situation I would guess the one-click tool doesn’t really handle everything you’d need either so I don’t get what the point of the comparison is.
    - adql 3y ago
      Kinda depends if you can run replication from aurora to regular database
      - jtc331 3y ago
        Aurora Postgres supports bog standard native Postgres logical replication.
        Ensorceled 3y ago
        Oh, cool, I wasn't aware you could replicate from Aurora RDS to Postgres RDS. That reduces the risk.
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      Yes, still "2 minutes of actual work and a lot of waiting around due to the limitations of the hardware" which is what I said. Perhaps try reading the whole sentence next time?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hobs 3y ago
    If you can't stream changes and have to take downtime for a migration then you effectively have vendor lock in if you are serious enough about your database. Physical Replication should be something any database can offer given its something cross database migrations used decades ago with no problem.
- sverhagen 3y ago
  If you talk about no vendor lock in, and you'd want to take your database then to a competitor, like Google Cloud, Azure, or on-premises, wouldn't you exactly expect to do a SQL dump and reloading everything? To me, the one-click move from RDS to Aurora you describe is a nice shortcut, but it doesn't invalidate that you can still do the former if you wanted to move to the competitor. Vendor lock in seems more that you've architected your application against a system that only exists on AWS, like SQS or S3 (although, I guess, competitors offer compatible APIs for some of those, I'm not entirely read up on the state of things there).
  - tough 3y ago
    Seems a bit of a dark pattern to have shortcut to onboard and not offer the same shortcut to offboard. Just like easy subscribe-online publications that will have you call during 2 hours with a rep pushing you discounts or whatever to cancel such subscription. Just not cool
    - chrisweekly 3y ago
      I'd characterize this asymmetry (convenient shortcut IN, standard export OUT) as a predictable, transparent, minor annoyance -- not a "dark pattern" representing deceptive or unethical practices.
      - tough 3y ago
        OK. yeah maybe dark pattern was a too strong term for just the annoyance... Just I'd try to stay away from amazon if I could
- CubsFan1060 3y ago
  This can be done with DMS. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dms/latest/userguide/CHAP_Introduction.Sources.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dms/latest/userguide/CHAP_Introd...
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    Huh. I suppose you can. The pricing looks a little opaque though, and the fact that it took 3 hours after I wrote my comment for yours to show up kind of implies it's a bit of an obscure service. I will also mention that the AWS team we were working with on this didn't mention DMS, and, when directly asked, literally told me there was no easy way to do an Aurora -> RDS migration.
    - CubsFan1060 3y ago
      Which is weird. This has been around for a few years, and, at least I thought, was a fairly popular service. Previously it wasn't great, but since they started using Logical Replication for Postgres, it's gotten far better than it was in the past.
TexanFeller 3y ago
Aurora significantly modifies the internals of the DBs, particularly the storage layers. It also makes large changes to how memory is used for Postgres. Query plans can be quite different than with the vanilla version. Once you tune and create indexes based on Aurora's characteristics it's going to be a pain to retune for the unmodified version. Aurora also introduces nasty bugs that don't exist on the RDS version such as a memory leak I found was periodically restarting our master. The Postgres team produces highly reliable code, but I don't trust Aurora's hacks on top of it.
- confiq 3y ago
  thank you! I needed to read this!

Aurora is I think pretty simple to move away from, since it's just fully compatible Postgres or Mysql. We even use a local postgres for development purposes against an Aurora solution.

Paul-Craft 3y ago

Nope. AWS makes it dead simple to move from RDS to Aurora by clicking a button. There's no way to move data from Aurora to RDS short of doing a SQL dump and reloading everything that way. I found this out when my previous employer was looking at moving from RDS to Aurora.

kerkeslager 3y ago
> > Aurora is I think pretty simple to move away from, since it's just fully compatible Postgres or Mysql. We even use a local postgres for development purposes against an Aurora solution. > Nope. AWS makes it dead simple to move from RDS to Aurora by clicking a button. There's no way to move data from Aurora to RDS short of doing a SQL dump and reloading everything that way. I found this out when my previous employer was looking at moving from RDS to Aurora. I got a bit of a chuckle out of this. There's no way to move from Aurora to RDS short of... 2 minutes of actual work and a lot of waiting around due to the limitations of the hardware? I get that it's not as easy as a literal button click, but this isn't vendor lock in.
- tough 3y ago
  What if you have a really big database? Still 2minutes?
  - manfre 3y ago
    I'm intentionally ignoring any of the sarcasm in your comment. The time needed for a db dump is always dependent upon the amount of data. This is true regardless of the db software or where it's running.
    - Ensorceled 3y ago
      I can't think of any project I've worked on where the main data base could be backed up and restored to a different database in "2 minutes" The sarcasm was warranted.
      - re-thc 3y ago
        With SSO multi-account and 2FA, it'd probably take longer than 2 minutes just to authenticate and configure AWS correctly to get started.
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        Isn’t the suggestion that the “active work” is very little and most of the time you’re just waiting?
        Ensorceled 3y ago
        Well, the elapsed time is how long I need production to be offline so there are a few more people "just waiting"
        emodendroket 3y ago
        Sure, but you don’t really expect to swap databases with a huge data store without any downtime, do you? I’m not aware of any technology that makes that easy.
        Ensorceled 3y ago
        Then why are you defending the ridiculous "2 minute" thing? If the CEO asked how long a migration will take would you respond "2 minutes of engineering time"?
        emodendroket 3y ago
        In that situation I would guess the one-click tool doesn’t really handle everything you’d need either so I don’t get what the point of the comparison is.
  - adql 3y ago
    Kinda depends if you can run replication from aurora to regular database
    - jtc331 3y ago
      Aurora Postgres supports bog standard native Postgres logical replication.
      - Ensorceled 3y ago
        Oh, cool, I wasn't aware you could replicate from Aurora RDS to Postgres RDS. That reduces the risk.
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    Yes, still "2 minutes of actual work and a lot of waiting around due to the limitations of the hardware" which is what I said. Perhaps try reading the whole sentence next time?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hobs 3y ago
  If you can't stream changes and have to take downtime for a migration then you effectively have vendor lock in if you are serious enough about your database. Physical Replication should be something any database can offer given its something cross database migrations used decades ago with no problem.
sverhagen 3y ago
If you talk about no vendor lock in, and you'd want to take your database then to a competitor, like Google Cloud, Azure, or on-premises, wouldn't you exactly expect to do a SQL dump and reloading everything? To me, the one-click move from RDS to Aurora you describe is a nice shortcut, but it doesn't invalidate that you can still do the former if you wanted to move to the competitor. Vendor lock in seems more that you've architected your application against a system that only exists on AWS, like SQS or S3 (although, I guess, competitors offer compatible APIs for some of those, I'm not entirely read up on the state of things there).
- tough 3y ago
  Seems a bit of a dark pattern to have shortcut to onboard and not offer the same shortcut to offboard. Just like easy subscribe-online publications that will have you call during 2 hours with a rep pushing you discounts or whatever to cancel such subscription. Just not cool
  - chrisweekly 3y ago
    I'd characterize this asymmetry (convenient shortcut IN, standard export OUT) as a predictable, transparent, minor annoyance -- not a "dark pattern" representing deceptive or unethical practices.
    - tough 3y ago
      OK. yeah maybe dark pattern was a too strong term for just the annoyance... Just I'd try to stay away from amazon if I could
CubsFan1060 3y ago
This can be done with DMS. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dms/latest/userguide/CHAP_Introduction.Sources.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dms/latest/userguide/CHAP_Introd...
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  Huh. I suppose you can. The pricing looks a little opaque though, and the fact that it took 3 hours after I wrote my comment for yours to show up kind of implies it's a bit of an obscure service. I will also mention that the AWS team we were working with on this didn't mention DMS, and, when directly asked, literally told me there was no easy way to do an Aurora -> RDS migration.
  - CubsFan1060 3y ago
    Which is weird. This has been around for a few years, and, at least I thought, was a fairly popular service. Previously it wasn't great, but since they started using Logical Replication for Postgres, it's gotten far better than it was in the past.

TexanFeller 3y ago

Aurora significantly modifies the internals of the DBs, particularly the storage layers. It also makes large changes to how memory is used for Postgres. Query plans can be quite different than with the vanilla version. Once you tune and create indexes based on Aurora's characteristics it's going to be a pain to retune for the unmodified version. Aurora also introduces nasty bugs that don't exist on the RDS version such as a memory leak I found was periodically restarting our master. The Postgres team produces highly reliable code, but I don't trust Aurora's hacks on top of it.

confiq 3y ago
thank you! I needed to read this!