Managing performance and scaling for Amazon Aurora MySQL - Amazon Aurora
Scaling Aurora MySQL DB instancesMaximum connectionsTemporary storage limits

Managing performance and scaling for Amazon Aurora MySQL

Scaling Aurora MySQL DB instances

You can scale Aurora MySQL DB instances in two ways, instance scaling and read scaling. For more information about read scaling, see Read scaling.

You can scale your Aurora MySQL DB cluster by modifying the DB instance class for each DB instance in the DB cluster. Aurora MySQL supports several DB instance classes optimized for Aurora. Don't use db.t2 or db.t3 instance classes for larger Aurora clusters of size greater than 40 TB. For the specifications of the DB instance classes supported by Aurora MySQL, see Amazon Aurora DB instance classes.

Note

We recommend using the T DB instance classes only for development and test servers, or other non-production servers. For more details on the T instance classes, see Using T instance classes for development and testing.

Maximum connections to an Aurora MySQL DB instance

The maximum number of connections allowed to an Aurora MySQL DB instance is determined by the max_connections parameter in the instance-level parameter group for the DB instance.

The following table lists the resulting default value of max_connections for each DB instance class available to Aurora MySQL. You can increase the maximum number of connections to your Aurora MySQL DB instance by scaling the instance up to a DB instance class with more memory, or by setting a larger value for the max_connections parameter in the DB parameter group for your instance, up to 16,000.

Tip

If your applications frequently open and close connections, or keep a large number of long-lived connections open, we recommend that you use Amazon RDS Proxy. RDS Proxy is a fully managed, highly available database proxy that uses connection pooling to share database connections securely and efficiently. To learn more about RDS Proxy, see Amazon RDS Proxy for Aurora.

For details about how Aurora Serverless v2 instances handle this parameter, see Maximum connections for Aurora Serverless v2.

Instance class max_connections default value

db.t2.small

45

db.t2.medium

90

db.t3.small

45

db.t3.medium

90

db.t3.large

135

db.t4g.medium

90

db.t4g.large

135

db.r3.large

1000

db.r3.xlarge

2000

db.r3.2xlarge

3000

db.r3.4xlarge

4000

db.r3.8xlarge

5000

db.r4.large

1000

db.r4.xlarge

2000

db.r4.2xlarge

3000

db.r4.4xlarge

4000

db.r4.8xlarge

5000

db.r4.16xlarge

6000

db.r5.large

1000

db.r5.xlarge

2000

db.r5.2xlarge

3000

db.r5.4xlarge

4000

db.r5.8xlarge

5000

db.r5.12xlarge

6000

db.r5.16xlarge

6000

db.r5.24xlarge

7000
db.r6g.large 1000
db.r6g.xlarge 2000
db.r6g.2xlarge 3000
db.r6g.4xlarge 4000
db.r6g.8xlarge 5000
db.r6g.12xlarge 6000
db.r6g.16xlarge 6000
db.r6i.large 1000
db.r6i.xlarge 2000
db.r6i.2xlarge 3000
db.r6i.4xlarge 4000
db.r6i.8xlarge 5000
db.r6i.12xlarge 6000
db.r6i.16xlarge 6000
db.r6i.24xlarge 7000
db.r6i.32xlarge 7000
db.r7g.large 1000
db.r7g.xlarge 2000
db.r7g.2xlarge 3000
db.r7g.4xlarge 4000
db.r7g.8xlarge 5000
db.r7g.12xlarge 6000
db.r7g.16xlarge 6000
db.r7i.large 1000
db.r7i.xlarge 2000
db.r7i.2xlarge 3000
db.r7i.4xlarge 4000
db.r7i.8xlarge 5000
db.r7i.12xlarge 6000
db.r7i.16xlarge 6000
db.r7i.24xlarge 7000
db.r7i.48xlarge 8000
db.r8g.large 1000
db.r8g.xlarge 2000
db.r8g.2xlarge 3000
db.r8g.4xlarge 4000
db.r8g.8xlarge 5000
db.r8g.12xlarge 6000
db.r8g.16xlarge 6000
db.r8g.24xlarge 7000
db.r8g.48xlarge 8000
db.x2g.large 2000
db.x2g.xlarge 3000
db.x2g.2xlarge 4000
db.x2g.4xlarge 5000
db.x2g.8xlarge 6000
db.x2g.12xlarge 7000
db.x2g.16xlarge 7000

If you create a new parameter group to customize your own default for the connection limit, you'll see that the default connection limit is derived using a formula based on the DBInstanceClassMemory value. As shown in the preceding table, the formula produces connection limits that increase by 1000 as the memory doubles between progressively larger R3, R4, and R5 instances, and by 45 for different memory sizes of T2 and T3 instances.

See Specifying DB parameters for more details on how DBInstanceClassMemory is calculated.

Aurora MySQL and RDS for MySQL DB instances have different amounts of memory overhead. Therefore, the max_connections value can be different for Aurora MySQL and RDS for MySQL DB instances that use the same instance class. The values in the table only apply to Aurora MySQL DB instances.

Note

The much lower connectivity limits for T2 and T3 instances are because with Aurora, those instance classes are intended only for development and test scenarios, not for production workloads.

The default connection limits are tuned for systems that use the default values for other major memory consumers, such as the buffer pool and query cache. If you change those other settings for your cluster, consider adjusting the connection limit to account for the increase or decrease in available memory on the DB instances.

Temporary storage limits for Aurora MySQL

Aurora MySQL stores tables and indexes in the Aurora storage subsystem. Aurora MySQL uses separate temporary or local storage for nonpersistent temporary files and non-InnoDB temporary tables. Local storage also includes files that are used for such purposes as sorting large datasets during query processing or for index build operations. It doesn't include InnoDB temporary tables.

For more information on temporary tables in Aurora MySQL version 3, see New temporary table behavior in Aurora MySQL version 3. For more information on temporary tables in version 2, see Temporary tablespace behavior in Aurora MySQL version 2.

The data and temporary files on these volumes are lost when starting and stopping the DB instance, and during host replacement.

These local storage volumes are backed by Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) and can be extended by using a larger DB instance class. For more information about storage, see Amazon Aurora storage.

Local storage is also used for importing data from Amazon S3 using LOAD DATA FROM S3 or LOAD XML FROM S3, and for exporting data to S3 using SELECT INTO OUTFILE S3. For more information on importing from and exporting to S3, see the following:

Aurora MySQL uses separate permanent storage for error logs, general logs, slow query logs, and audit logs for most of the Aurora MySQL DB instance classes (not including burstable-performance instance class types such as db.t2, db.t3, and db.t4g). The data on this volume is retained when starting and stopping the DB instance, and during host replacement.

This permanent storage volume is also backed by Amazon EBS and has a fixed size according to the DB instance class. It can't be extended by using a larger DB instance class.

The following table shows the maximum amount of temporary and permanent storage available for each Aurora MySQL DB instance class. For more information on DB instance class support for Aurora, see Amazon Aurora DB instance classes.

DB instance class Maximum temporary/local storage available (GiB) Additional maximum storage available for log files (GiB)
db.x2g.16xlarge 1280 500
db.x2g.12xlarge 960 500
db.x2g.8xlarge 640 500
db.x2g.4xlarge 320 500
db.x2g.2xlarge 160 60
db.x2g.xlarge 80 60
db.x2g.large 40 60
db.r8g.48xlarge 3840 500
db.r8g.24xlarge 1920 500
db.r8g.16xlarge 1280 500
db.r8g.12xlarge 960 500
db.r8g.8xlarge 640 500
db.r8g.4xlarge 320 500
db.r8g.2xlarge 160 60
db.r8g.xlarge 80 60
db.r8g.large 32 60
db.r7i.48xlarge 3840 500
db.r7i.24xlarge 1920 500
db.r7i.16xlarge 1280 500
db.r7i.12xlarge 960 500
db.r7i.8xlarge 640 500
db.r7i.4xlarge 320 500
db.r7i.2xlarge 160 60
db.r7i.xlarge 80 60
db.r7i.large 32 60
db.r7g.16xlarge 1280 500
db.r7g.12xlarge 960 500
db.r7g.8xlarge 640 500
db.r7g.4xlarge 320 500
db.r7g.2xlarge 160 60
db.r7g.xlarge 80 60
db.r7g.large 32 60
db.r6i.32xlarge 2560 500
db.r6i.24xlarge 1920 500
db.r6i.16xlarge 1280 500
db.r6i.12xlarge 960 500
db.r6i.8xlarge 640 500
db.r6i.4xlarge 320 500
db.r6i.2xlarge 160 60
db.r6i.xlarge 80 60
db.r6i.large 32 60
db.r6g.16xlarge 1280 500
db.r6g.12xlarge 960 500
db.r6g.8xlarge 640 500
db.r6g.4xlarge 320 500
db.r6g.2xlarge 160 60
db.r6g.xlarge 80 60
db.r6g.large 32 60
db.r5.24xlarge 1920 500
db.r5.16xlarge 1280 500
db.r5.12xlarge 960 500
db.r5.8xlarge 640 500
db.r5.4xlarge 320 500
db.r5.2xlarge 160 60
db.r5.xlarge 80 60
db.r5.large 32 60
db.r4.16xlarge 1280 500
db.r4.8xlarge 640 500
db.r4.4xlarge 320 500
db.r4.2xlarge 160 60
db.r4.xlarge 80 60
db.r4.large 32 60
db.t4g.large 32 –
db.t4g.medium 32 –
db.t3.large 32 –
db.t3.medium 32 –
db.t3.small 32 –
db.t2.medium 32 –
db.t2.small 32 –
Important

These values represent the theoretical maximum amount of free storage on each DB instance. The actual local storage available to you might be lower. Aurora uses some local storage for its management processes, and the DB instance uses some local storage even before you load any data. You can monitor the temporary storage available for a specific DB instance with the FreeLocalStorage CloudWatch metric, described in Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon Aurora. You can check the amount of free storage at the present time. You can also chart the amount of free storage over time. Monitoring the free storage over time helps you to determine whether the value is increasing or decreasing, or to find the minimum, maximum, or average values.

(This doesn't apply to Aurora Serverless v2.)