Amazon RDS automated backup

Question

I can see from the AWS console that my RDS instance is being backed up once a day. From the FAQ I understand that it is being backup on S3. But when I use the console to view my S3 buckets, I don't see the RDS backup.

So:

1. How do I get my hands on my RDS backup?
2. Once I have it how do I use it to restore my DB i.e is it a regular mysqldump file or something else?

Answer 1

OK - I see it under the DB snapshots, Automated Snapshots (Had it selected to Manual Snapshots and hence could not see it)

Answer 2

RDS snapshot as well as EBS snapsots are stored in S3, but not accesible via the S3 interface. You can restore a whole database be clicking "Restore Snapshot" from the AWS Management Console.