Managing RDS backups and maintenance with automation tools

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To manage RDS backups and maintenance with automation tools using Pulumi, we will look at leveraging the AWS RDS Instance resource from Pulumi's AWS provider. The `aws.rds.Instance` resource allows us to create and manage an Amazon RDS database instance, which includes setting up the backup and maintenance features.

Backups in AWS RDS can be broadly controlled by two key properties: `backupRetentionPeriod` and `preferredBackupWindow`. The `backupRetentionPeriod` specifies the number of days for which automated backups are retained. The `preferredBackupWindow` property allows you to set the time window during which backups are taken.

Maintenance for RDS instances includes automatic patching and updates, which can be managed using the `autoMinorVersionUpgrade` and the `preferredMaintenanceWindow` properties.

To automate the management of these features in Pulumi, we'll do the following:

- **Create an RDS Instance**: This will be our primary resource; we will set its backup and maintenance properties directly.
- **Set Backup Properties**: Adjust the properties related to automated backups as per our requirements.
- **Set Maintenance Properties**: Configure automatic upgrades and the maintenance window.

Below is a TypeScript program using Pulumi to automate an RDS Instance with backup and maintenance configuration:

```typescript
import * as pulumi from '@pulumi/pulumi';
import * as aws from '@pulumi/aws';

// Create a security group for the RDS instance
const rdsSecurityGroup = new aws.ec2.SecurityGroup("rdsSecurityGroup", {
    description: "Allow inbound traffic",
    ingress: [
        { protocol: "tcp", fromPort: 5432, toPort: 5432, cidrBlocks: ["0.0.0.0/0"] },
    ],
});

// Create an RDS instance with backup and maintenance configuration
const dbInstance = new aws.rds.Instance("my-db-instance", {
    // Specifies the name of the RDS database instance
    instanceClass: "db.t3.micro",
    
    // Set the database engine. Modify as per your database choice
    // Available options are: mariadb, mysql, oracle-ee, oracle-se2, oracle-se, oracle-se1,
    // postgres, sqlserver-ee, sqlserver-se, sqlserver-ex, sqlserver-web
    engine: "postgres",

// Set username and password for the database. For production, use more secure methods
    // such as Pulumi secrets or AWS Secrets Manager
    username: "postgres",
    password: "mysecurepassword",

allocatedStorage: 20,
    
    // Set the backup retention period. This specifies the number of days to keep backups for.
    // Set to 0 to disable backups.
    backupRetentionPeriod: 7,

// Set preferred backup window in UTC. Ensure this does not conflict with the maintenance window.
    // AWS will perform the backup within this window.
    preferredBackupWindow: "04:00-06:00",

// Automatically apply minor version upgrades or not
    autoMinorVersionUpgrade: true,
    
    // Set the preferred maintenance window in UTC
    // AWS will perform maintenance operations within this window.
    preferredMaintenanceWindow: "Sun:05:00-Sun:09:00",

// Link the RDS instance to the created security group
    vpcSecurityGroupIds: [rdsSecurityGroup.id],
    
    // Optionally, set multi-AZ deployment for high availability
    multiAz: true,

// Optionally enable storage encryption
    storageEncrypted: true,

// Additional options can be added here like tags, DB Subnet Group for VPC placement, 
    // Parameter Group for engine configuration, etc.
});

// Export the RDS instance endpoint
export const dbEndpoint = dbInstance.endpoint;
```

This program sets up an AWS RDS database with a managed backup and maintenance routine. Here's a breakdown of what we've done:

- We've created a security group for the RDS instance to allow inbound traffic on port 5432, which is commonly used by PostgreSQL databases.
- We've instantiated an RDS database with the class `db.t3.micro`, which is suitable for development environments, using the PostgreSQL engine.
- We've set the backup retention and backup window for when AWS will perform automated backups of the database.
- We've enabled automatic minor version upgrades and defined a maintenance window.
- We also activated multi-AZ deployment for high availability and enabled storage encryption.

Remember to replace `"mysecurepassword"` with a strong, unique password in a production environment, and consider using [Pulumi secrets](https://www.pulumi.com/docs/intro/concepts/secrets/) for sensitive data.

To run this Pulumi program, you'd typically perform the following steps:

- Initialize a Pulumi project in your preferred programming language.
- Write the program code in a file, such as `index.ts` for TypeScript.
- Run `pulumi up` to create the infrastructure.

The program will create an RDS instance configured with automated backups and maintenance windows according to the values you've set. After running the program, Pulumi will provide you with an endpoint which can be used to connect to the created RDS instance.