AWS Data Migration Service (DMS): Explained

Data no more deserves to be stuck in on-premises infrastructure. Most of the organizations from start-ups to enterprise recognize the value of cloud and started shifting towards it. In this digital era, migrating towards cloud becomes the indispensable thing for any organization. This blog helps to understand AWS Data Migration Service in a detailed manner. let’s get started. 

AWS Data Migration Service

AWS Data Migration Service (DMS) is an AWS managed migration and replication service that assists with the speedy, secure, and no data loss transfer from on-premises or cloud-hosted data storage into AWS. With the help of the AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT), AWS DMS may migrate any form of data as well as data between two distinct types of database engines. AWS DMS supports almost all popular database engines, including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and Amazon Aurora. Both heterogeneous and homogeneous migrations are possible using DMS. 

How Does Data Migration Service Works

To get started with data migration service, you need to define your source and target database connections so that DMS can identify, where the data needs to be copy and move. Then, create one or more migration tasks. DMS replication instance generation is the very next thing you have to do, thus it is responsible to run your migration tasks. Make sure to check the connection between On-premise or cloud hosted database and replication instance. If your database is in private subnet then create a VPN tunnel between on-premise and AWS network. 

Components used in DMS: 

Replication Instance: AWS DMS replication instance is simply an Amazon EC2 instance that hosts one or more replication tasks. A single replication instance can run one or more replication tasks, depending on the capacity of the replication instance. 

Endpoint: An endpoint is used by the AWS DMS to connect target and source databases and transfer data. You will have source endpoint and target endpoint. These endpoint can either on-premise database or any other AWS Database services. 

Database Migration Tasks: Replication tasks instruct DMS on what data should be transferred between target and source. You can define which Database and what schema can be transferred from source to target endpoints. 

The Three Ways to Perform AWS Data Migration

AWS DMS provides mainly 3 types of migration options. 

FullLoad: With FullLoad option DMS migrates all the data from source to endpoint but will not update data changes happened after the migration.  

CDC: CDC (Change Data Capture) will be great choice when you have already migrated from source to target and want to maintain synchronization between them about data changes.  

FullLoad + CDC: When this option is selected DMS will first migrate initial database and keep replicating the data changes happened at source. This is a great choice when you don’t want any down time or data loss during migration.  

Also Read: AWS Comprehend Medical

AWS Data Migration Types: 

There are two types of AWS data migration. 

Homogenous Migration: When the source and target databases are identical i,e when both source and target databases are of same database engine and same scheme structures then the migration is called as Homogeneous migration. Examples like migration between MySQL to Amazon RDS for MySQL, MySQL to Amazon Aurora, Oracle to Amazon RDS for Oracle, or Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. 

Hetrogenous Migration: When the source and target databases are not identical i,e when both source and target databases are of different database engine then migration is called as Heterogeneous migration. Examples like migration between MySQL to Amazon RDS for Postgres, MySQL to Amazon Aurora Postgres, Oracle to Amazon RDS for Maria, or Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon RDS for MySQL. A schema and code transformation is necessary prior to migration as the source and target databases’ schema structures and data types different. You can leverage AWS Schema Conversion Tool(SCT) to convert schemas for supported formats.

Conclusion

Here, we have discussed about AWS Data Migration Services and how it works. Hope it will help you understand data migration better. We, continuuminnovations, Cloud Managed Service Providers offers end-to-end data migration services to various industries across the globe.