If you want to migrate databases quickly and securely to Amazon Web Service, the best option is to use the Database Migration Service of Amazon Web Service. Downtime is minimized during migration as the source database remains fully functional during the process. This is important for large organizations that might find downtime very inconvenient.

What is AWS DMS

AWS DMS supports both homogeneous and heterogeneous database migration. In the first instance, the database engines of the source and target databases complement each other. Examples include Oracle to Amazon RDS for Oracle, MySQL to Amazon Aurora, MySQL to Amazon RDS for MySQL, or Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon RDS for SQL Server.In the second case, the two engines are dissimilar, examples being Oracle to Amazon Aurora, Oracle to PostgreSQL, or Microsoft SQL Server to MySQL migrations.

With AWS DMS it is possible to replicate data continuously and consolidate databases with high availability into petabyte-scale data warehouse through uninterrupted data streaming to Amazon Redshift and Amazon S3. Further, AWS DMS can be used free for six months when migrating databases to Amazon Aurora, Amazon Redshift, Amazon DynamoDB or Amazon Document DB.

Migration activities performed by AWS DMS

AWS DMS makes most of the complex and tedious tasks of database migration very easy.

• In traditional migration processes, users have to procure the required hardware and software, perform capacity analysis, and test and debug the installation. In AWS DMS the deployment, monitoring, and management of all hardware and software needed for migration is done automatically and can be started in minutes after completing the AWS DMS configuration activity.

• AWS DMS allows scaling up or down of migration resources as per the requirement to match the workload.

• In AWS DMS, users have to pay only for the resources that are required for migration whereas in the traditional models, up-front purchase costs and ongoing maintenance charges have to be paid.

• All infrastructure that supports the migration server is automatically managed by AWS DMS. It includes hardware and software, error reporting, and software patching.

• Automatic fail over is provided by AWS DMS. If primary systems fail during migration, a backup server automatically takes over the migration. After the issue is resolved, the primary server is auto-updated and work goes on as usual.

• AWS DMS helps users to switch to a more high-performing and cost-effective engine than the current one. For example, users can change to the fast and secure services offered by Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) or Amazon Aurora. Or for migration, organizations can move to and get the benefits of Amazon Redshift, NoSQL platforms like Amazon DynamoDB, or low-cost storage platforms like Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

• Data migration is fully secured on AWS DMS as data at rest is encrypted with AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encryption.

These are the reasons why AWS DMS is the preferred option of organizations for data migration.