Managed Databases — RDS, Aurora & DynamoDB
Offload database operations: pick relational (RDS/Aurora) or serverless NoSQL (DynamoDB).
AWS offers managed databases so you stop running engines yourself. RDS provides managed relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server, Oracle): AWS handles patching, backups, and failover. Multi-AZ deployments keep a synchronous standby for high availability, and read replicas scale reads. Aurora is AWS's cloud-native MySQL/PostgreSQL-compatible engine with a distributed storage layer that replicates six ways across three AZs, offering higher throughput and faster failover than standard RDS.
RDS/Aurora is hiring a managed kitchen that still cooks classic recipes (SQL, joins) but where someone else handles the cleaning and a backup chef stands ready. DynamoDB is a vast automated vending network: instant retrieval by slot number (key), infinitely expandable, but you must know the slot in advance rather than browse.