Amazon RDS - Online only when needed?

Question

I had a question about Amazon RDS. I only need the database online for about 2 hours a day but I am dealing with quite a large database at around 1gb.

I have two main questions:

1. Can I automate bringing my RDS database online and offline via scripts to save money?

2. When I put a RDS offline to stop the "work hours" counter running and billing me, when I bring it back online will it still have the same content (i.e will all my data stay there, or will it have to be a blank DB?). If so, is there any way around this rather than backing up to S3 and reimporting it every time?

Answer 1

If you wish to do this programatically,

1. Snapshot the RDS instance using rds-create-db-snapshot http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/CommandLineReference/CLIReference-cmd-CopyDBSnapshot.html

2. Delete the running instance using rds-delete-db-instance http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/CommandLineReference/CLIReference-cmd-DeleteDBInstance.html

3. Restore the database from the snapshot using rds-restore-db-instance-from-db-snapshot http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/CommandLineReference/CLIReference-cmd-RestoreDBInstanceFromDBSnapshot.html

You may also do all of this from the AWS Web Console as well, if you wish to do this manually.

Answer 2

You can start EC2* instances using shell scripts, so I guess that you can as well for RDS. (see http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS....html)

But unlike EC2*, you cannot "stop" an RDS instance without "destroying" it. You need to create a DB snapshot when terminating your database. You will use this DB snapshot when re-starting the database.

*EC2 : Elastic Computing, renting a virtual server or a server.