(Preview) Move Aurora instances to Graviton

Opportunity Name: 

Move Aurora instances to Graviton

AWS Resource Type:

Amazon Aurora (RDS)

Opportunity Description:

This FF identifies provisioned Aurora instances that can move to Graviton to achieve cost reduction while maintaining the same performance.

Criteria for identifying the opportunity:

This FF finds provisioned Aurora instances (i.e. not Serverless or reserved) that are currently available, running on the Intel platform, and have a database version supporting Graviton.  In addition, the target instance type should be compatible with Graviton, respecting the following instance type migration paths:

• db.r5.large & db.r6i.large -> db.r6g.large
• db.r5.xlarge & db.r6i.xlarge -> db.r6g.xlarge
• db.r5.2xlarge & db.r6i.2xlarge -> db.r6g.2xlarge
• db.r5.4xlarge & db.r6i.4xlarge -> db.r6g.4xlarge
• db.r5.8xlarge & db.r6i.8xlarge -> db.r6g.8xlarge
• db.r5.12xlarge & db.r6i.12xlarge -> db.r6g.12xlarge
• db.r5.16xlarge & db.r6i.16xlarge -> db.r6g.16xlarge
• db.t3.medium -> db.t4g.medium
• db.t3.large -> db.t4g.large

Potential savings (range in % on annual basis):

On average, this FF should provide 10% savings based on the current price difference between Graviton and Intel-equivalent instances.

What happens when the Fixer is executed?

If the target instance is the only member of its cluster, this FF will re-create the instance using the CreateDBInstance and FailoverDBCluster AWS API operations, deleting the old instance once complete. 

If the target instance is a cluster member with multiple instances, the target instance will be re-typed in place using the ModifyDBInstance operation, and if the target instance is the primary instance, the FailoverDBCluster operation will restore its primary status.

Is it possible to rollback once CloudFix implements the fixer?

Yes, rollback can be triggered manually by executing the SSM Document "Cloudfix-Runbook-AuroraInstancesToGraviton-Rollback".

Required parameters:

• DBClusterIdentifier: The cluster identifier (name) whose instances we are about to rollback
• DBInstanceIdentifier: The instance identifier (name) to rollback
• DBTargetClass: The type to which the instance should be retyped
• IsPrimary: if this is the cluster primary instance or not
• ClusterNumberInstances: Indicates the number of instances in the cluster

Can CloudFix implement the fix automatically once I accept the recommendation?

Yes, approving the FF for the target instance will schedule immediate execution. 

Does this fix require downtime?

Yes, even using a fail-over, we expect downtime to be around 30 seconds.

Additional Resources:

• CloudFix Knowledge Base