Amazon Relational Database Service enters public beta

The public beta of Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), a new web service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale relational databases in the cloud. Amazon RDS gives you all the features and capabilities of a MySQL database, while managing time-consuming database administration tasks and providing the cost-efficiency of running in the AWS cloud.

Amazon RDS provides a fully featured MySQL database, so the code, applications, and tools that you use today with your existing MySQL databases work in Amazon RDS without modification. The service automatically handles common database administration tasks, such as setup and provisioning, patch management, and backup.

You also have the flexibility to scale the compute and storage resources associated with your database instance through a simple API call. Like all AWS infrastructure services, Amazon RDS is easy to deploy and simple to manage.

Here are some highlights for Amazon RDS:

• Simple to deploy – Quickly create a new production-ready relational database with a simple API call.
• Managed – Amazon RDS handles generic, time-consuming database management tasks, such as patch management and backup.
• Compatible – All of your existing MySQL database tools, applications, and drivers will still work.
• Scalable – With a simple API call you can scale the compute and storage resources available to your database to meet your business needs and application load.
• Reliable – Amazon RDS runs on the same highly reliable infrastructure used by other Amazon Web Services. Amazon RDS also gives you additional peace of mind by providing an automated database backup facility.
• Inexpensive – You pay very low rates and only for the resources you actually consume. There are no long-term contracts or up-front commitments to use Amazon RDS.