Reduce storage of MySQL RDS databases with zero downtime using AWS Blue/Green deployment

DevOps engineers often face the challenges of RDS database optimization and update, especially in high load situations, where traditional methods are prone to risk of downtime. This article introduces AWS blue/green deployment strategy to achieve zero downtime update of RDS database.

Say goodbye to the nightmare of database update downtime! This article will explain the blue/green deployment strategy in detail and provide operational steps in the AWS environment to help you update the RDS database instance without affecting service availability.

Preparation

First, coordinate the development team and select the period with the lowest workload traffic for updates. Good DevOps practice advice to notify the team in advance.

This example demonstrates how to reduce database instance storage space with zero downtime using blue/green deployment. You can operate through the AWS RDS console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS SDK, which is used by the AWS RDS console .

Note: Always enable automatic backup before performing a blue/green deployment for a MySQL or MariaDB RDS instance.

Step 1: Create a blue/green deployment

Assuming that the database cluster contains one primary database and three replicas (as shown in the figure below), we reduce the primary database storage space from 400GB to 200GB.

Select the main database, click "Action", and then select "Create Blue/Green Deployment" to enter the blue/Green Deployment configuration interface.

Step 2: Specify the identifier

Specify a unique identifier name for the blue/green deployment (case insensitive, but stored in lower case). This identifier is used to distinguish between production environments (blue environment) and temporary environments (green environment).

Step 3: Configure a green environment

Configure the database engine and parameter group for the green environment. In this example, to reduce storage space, we use the same engine version and parameter group as in the Blue Environment (production database).

Step 4: Configure the green instance database type

Select the same instance type as the blue environment.

Step 5: Adjust the green environment storage space

Key Steps: Resize the storage space of the green deployment to the target size (200GB in this example).

The AWS console will synchronously update the entire database cluster. Note that what we're reducing the storage space of the primary database, and this change will be applied to all three replicas.

(Comparison of blue and green main deployment)

(Comparison of blue and green copy)

Before clicking "Create", the system will display the cost estimate for green deployment.

The completion time of a blue/green deployment depends on factors such as database size, workload, and replica count, and can take several minutes to several hours. In this case, it takes about 5 hours.

AWS automatically handles green deployed database cluster naming conventions to align with the blue environment, including updating the endpoints of the primary and replica nodes. You do not need to modify the application configuration. It is recommended to notify the development team of this action through appropriate channels (such as Slack). The entire process achieves zero downtime, with short delays only on the main cluster (blue) environment.

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