Getting ready

Before we get started with Amazon RDS, we need to familiarize ourselves with a few terms:

• DB instance: A DB instance is a basic component of Amazon RDS. It's an isolated database engine in the cloud. It can be accessed using standard clients, provided our security group allows for it. Amazon RDS has different offerings in terms of memory and computation power, which is determined by its DBInstance class.
• Regions and availability zones: AWS offers various hosting options across the globe called regions and multiple availability zones inside each region (also referenced as different physical data centers within the same region). This feature enables us to deploy highly available services.
• Security groups: We have discussed security groups in the previous chapter. Security groups can also be attached to a DB instance and restrict access to limited IP addresses, subnets, or even instances in other security groups.
• DB Parameters Groups: In order to configure DB engine parameters, RDS provides a service called DB Parameter Groups, which allows us to configure DB engine parameters and use the same DB Parameter Group with multiple DB instances.