Issue link: https://resources.awscloud.com/i/1496544
DBA Tasks That Are Taken Over by the Vendor A key difference when using a managed database service in the cloud, as compared to an on-premises database, is that DBAs per‐ form administrative tasks without physical access to servers or direct control over installations. At first, it might take some DBAs time to get used to this new reality. It's important for DBAs to take this opportunity to expand into the new tasks discussed in this chapter. DBA Tasks That Remain but with Changes Several conventional DBA responsibilities remain necessary in the cloud, but with subtle differences, regardless of whether you use a managed database service or run your own databases. Provisioning Managed database services such as Amazon RDS offer a wide range of instance types for your database servers. Instead of ordering a hardware system with particular memory and CPU requirements for your datacenter, you choose one or more instance types that offer the memory and CPU power that meet your requirements. Matching the instance type to your workloads can help reduce the possibility of paying for resources that you won't use. Scaling is another provisioning task. Autoscaling, which you can do at the level of VMs and at the level of databases, lets the system add an instance when the loads become high and shut down an instance so as not to waste excess capacity when the loads diminish. Although autoscaling is an extremely valuable form of automation, you can fall victim to a DoS attack or configuration error that spins up a huge number of instances and jacks up your costs. You can also choose regions near your database users for optimal response time. Using the offerings of a global cloud provider wisely is a key aspect of provisioning in the cloud. As we have discussed, traditional databases, especially the online transaction processing (OLTP) databases, are notoriously difficult to scale. As the number of users, the size of the datasets, and the com‐ plexity of database operations increase, query response times grow longer. Business growth can be reflected in all those factors, as well as the growth of applications that place more of a burden on the 14 | Chapter 2: The Changing Role of the DBA in the Cloud