/rds-oss

name: rds-oss
version: 1
description: Advises on Amazon RDS open-source engines (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL) for instance creation, upgrade planning, commitment pricing, proxy evaluation, and Blue/Green deployments. Handles any RDS MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL question, including create a production-ready RDS MySQL instance, provision an RDS PostgreSQL database, run the RDS upgrade advisor for my RDS MySQL instance, what are my upgrade options, upgrade RDS MariaDB from 10.6 to the latest version, should I buy reserved instances or a savings plan for db.r7g.2xlarge RDS MySQL, change a VARCHAR to INT column on RDS MySQL 8.0 with Blue/Green, and does RDS Proxy help when PgBouncer already runs in transaction mode. Covers instance creation with production best practices, describe-db-instances and describe-db-engine-versions upgrade-target workflow, live prechecks via SSM or direct connection, RI versus DSP commitment pricing, RDS Proxy versus PgBouncer, and Blue/Green lifecycle with binlog replay compatibility.

RDS OSS Advisor (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL)

Overview

Advisor for Amazon RDS on the open-source engines — **MySQL**, **MariaDB**, and **PostgreSQL**. Five decision areas:

1. **Instance creation** — provision production-ready instances with best-practice defaults (latest version, Multi-AZ, encryption, Performance Insights, Secrets Manager password management) 2. **Upgrade planning** — identify instance, enumerate targets, run live prechecks, flag plan regressions, surface pre/post checklists 3. **Commitment pricing** — estimate RI and Database Savings Plan savings for steady workloads 4. **RDS Proxy evaluation** — decide whether proxy is worth it, based on connection utilization and pinning risks 5. **Blue/Green deployments** — plan low-downtime DDL or major upgrades, with DDL compatibility analysis

Produces cost estimates, precheck findings, and CLI commands. For instance creation, executes the create-db-instance call with production best practices. For upgrades, purchases, and switchovers — advisory only, never executes without explicit user confirmation.

Scoped to RDS open-source engines. For Aurora, use `amazon-aurora`. For Oracle, SQL Server, Db2, use the engine-specific skills.

The AWS MCP server is recommended for executing commands but is not required; all operations can also be performed via the AWS CLI.

Decision Guide

| User asks about… | Go to | |---|---| | Create, provision, or set up a new RDS MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL instance | [Production Instance Creation](#production-instance-creation) below | | Upgrade, target version, pre/post-upgrade checklist, upgrade prechecks, Read Replica upgrade order | [references/upgrade-workflow.md](references/upgrade-workflow.md) | | Reserved Instance, RI, Database Savings Plan, DSP, 1yr vs 3yr, Multi-AZ commitment, No/Partial/All Upfront | [references/commitment-pricing-workflow.md](references/commitment-pricing-workflow.md) | | RDS Proxy, connection pooling, too many connections, Lambda DB connections, proxy pinning, PgBouncer vs Proxy | [references/proxy-advisor-workflow.md](references/proxy-advisor-workflow.md) | | Blue/Green, zero-downtime DDL, switchover, schema change with minimal downtime, type change on production | [references/bluegreen-advisor-workflow.md](references/bluegreen-advisor-workflow.md) |

Broad request ("help me with RDS")? Present the five options as one line each. If the user supplied an instance ID, offer a general health check (engine + version + connection utilization) as entry point.

Out-of-scope (Aurora, Oracle, SQL Server, Db2, backup policy, Performance Insights deep-dive analysis): answer from general knowledge, note this skill doesn't cover it, point to the right engine-specific skill.

RDS vs Aurora — Do Not Confuse

RDS open-source engines and Aurora are different products with different semantics. You MUST NOT apply Aurora concepts to RDS:

| Concept | RDS (this skill) | Aurora (use `amazon-aurora`) | |---|---|---| | LTS releases | ❌ Does not exist | ✅ Has LTS versions | | Serverless mode | ❌ Does not exist | ✅ Aurora Serverless | | I/O-Optimized storage | ❌ Does not exist | ✅ aurora-iopt1 | | Data API | ❌ Not available for standalone RDS | ✅ Aurora Serverless clusters | | Instance topology | Instance-based (`describe-db-instances`) | Cluster-based (`describe-db-clusters`) | | Upgrade scope | Per-instance | Per-cluster (writer + readers together) | | DSP term options | 1yr and 3yr | 1yr only | | Pricing model | On-Demand + RI + DSP | On-Demand + RI + DSP + I/O pricing |

If a user asks about any Aurora-specific concept, route to `amazon-aurora`. If an instance turns out to be Aurora (engine = `aurora-mysql` or `aurora-postgresql`), stop and redirect.

Production Instance Creation

When a user asks to create or provision a new RDS MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL instance for production use, you MUST apply the following best practices by default:

1. **Use the latest stable major version** — run `aws rds describe-db-engine-versions --engine <engine> --query "DBEngineVersions[].EngineVersion"` to find the latest. For MySQL, prefer 8.4.x over 8.0 (8.0 has an earlier end-of-standard-support date than 8.4 — see [RDS Extended Support](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/extended-support/) for dates). For PostgreSQL, use the latest major. For MariaDB, use the latest major. 2. **Enable Multi-AZ** — set `--multi-az` for automatic failover. 3. **Enable storage encryption using a customer-managed KMS key** — set `--storage-encrypted --kms-key-id <key-arn>`. A customer-managed key gives full control over key rotation, access policies, and cross-account sharing. 4. **Disable public access** — set `--no-publicly-accessible` to ensure the instance is not accessible from the internet. 5. **Set backup retention to 7 days** — set `--backup-retention-period 7`. 6. **Enable Performance Insights with 7-day retention** — set `--enable-performance-insights --performance-insights-retention-period 7`. If Perf