Basic MySQL Question - Do I need it?

Question

Hi All,  
  
Firstly, I apologise in advance for such a basic question but I can't seem to find the answer I am looking for in any of the AWS support docs/webpages.  
  
I have migrated a website over to AWS for better performance and stability.   
  
The website is very simple, built on PHP with a MySQL DB. The website inserts lead data into the MySQL database when customer submits form. Less than 20 submission per day.  
  
I currently have an AWS instance running LAMP_PHP_7-512MB.  
  
Website is migrated over and working well, however I notice the option in my AWS control panel to create database with varying specs, including an option for "Highly Available".  
  
**So my question is this:**  
Why and when would I need to consider paying for a new MySQL DB when my LAMP stack includes MySQL?  
  
What should I be aware of using the MySQL server on LAMP and what are the benefits of creating, and pay for, a new MySQL DB?  
  
Many thanks,  
Kev

Accepted Answer

Hi Kev,  
For a small wordpress site with 20 submissions per day and a small audience, your LAMP stack on a single EC2 instance will most likely meet your requirements. If you are experiencing growth and/or want to plan for growth, that is when you will want to start to build out your architecture by scaling either horizontally or vertically. Here is a well-written series of articles by David Kuo, on Medium.com that explains the overview of starting out on a single EC2 instance running LAMP, to scaling to an architecture that will support your future > 1 million customers :-)  
  
Hope this helps!  
-randy

Answer

Kev, Here are docs on AWS high availability RDS -  .  
  
"When you provision a Multi-AZ DB instance, Amazon RDS automatically creates a primary DB instance and synchronously replicates the data to a standby instance in a different Availability Zone (AZ). In case of an infrastructure failure, Amazon RDS performs an automatic failover to the standby DB instance"  
  
You can see how it's "nice to have" or "vital" depending on your application. Are you okay taking regular snapshots to back up your db, or do you want a real failover system? How important is your data? Whether or not you want to pay for extra depends on the answer to these questions. Hope this helps.

Basic MySQL Question - Do I need it?

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