How is Amazon Aurora different from a standard RDS database?
Aurora is AWS's cloud-built MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible database. It stores data in a shared cluster volume copied six ways across three AZs, supports up to 15 low-lag replicas, and fails over faster than standard RDS.
Explain it simply
Standard RDS MySQL is like a normal Maruti engine in a car body AWS looks after. Aurora keeps the same driving controls, so your existing code works, but the engine underneath is rebuilt for the cloud so it is faster to recover and easier to scale.
Example
RDS MySQL / PostgreSQL Aurora
Storage : EBS volume per instance shared cluster volume, auto-grows
(up to 128 TiB)
Copies of data : standby copy if Multi-AZ 6 copies across 3 AZs
Read replicas : up to 5 (MySQL engine) up to 15, share the same storage
Failover : about 1-2 minutes usually faster, replica promoted
Compatibility : the real engine MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible
Extras : - Serverless v2, Global Database,
backtrack (MySQL-compatible)Because replicas read from the same storage volume, Aurora replica lag is usually only milliseconds, unlike standard RDS replicas which copy data themselves.
Aurora normally costs more per instance than standard RDS, so it fits workloads that need higher scale or availability.
What to say in the interview
"Aurora is a cloud-native, MySQL/PostgreSQL-compatible engine with a shared, self-healing storage layer across three AZs and up to 15 replicas. It recovers faster and scales reads better than standard RDS, at a higher price, so I choose it when availability and scale justify the cost."
Common mistakes
- Saying Aurora is just RDS with a different name.