You can turn on Performance Insights for your DB cluster when you create it. If needed, you can turn it off later by modifying your DB cluster from the console. Turning Performance Insights on and off doesn't cause downtime, a reboot, or a failover.
Note
Performance Schema is an optional performance tool used by Aurora MySQL. If you turn Performance Schema on or off, you need to reboot. If you turn Performance Insights on or off, however, you don't need to reboot. For more information, see Overview of the Performance Schema for Performance Insights on Aurora MySQL.
If you use Performance Insights with Aurora global databases, turn on Performance Insights individually for the databases in each AWS Region. For details, see Monitoring an Amazon Aurora global database with Amazon RDS Performance Insights.
The Performance Insights agent consumes limited CPU and memory on the DB host. When the DB load is high, the agent limits the performance impact by collecting data less frequently.
In the console, you can turn Performance Insights on or off when you create a DB cluster. Enabling Performance Insights allows you to manage Performance Insights settings and options for your DB cluster. Cluster level settings apply to all DB instances the cluster.
Turning Performance Insights on or off when creating a DB cluster
After creating a new DB cluster, Amazon RDS enables Performance Insights by default. To turn off Performance Insights for your DB cluster, choose the option Database Insights – Standard and deselect the option Enable Performance Insights.
To create a DB cluster, follow the instructions for your DB engine in Creating an Amazon Aurora DB cluster.
The following screenshot shows the Performance Insights section.

If you choose Enable Performance Insights, you have the following options:
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Retention (for the Standard mode of Database Insights only) – The amount of time to retain Performance Insights data. The retention setting in the free tier is Default (7 days). To retain your performance data for longer, specify 1–24 months. For more information about retention periods, see Pricing and data retention for Performance Insights.
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AWS KMS key – Specify your AWS KMS key. Performance Insights encrypts all potentially sensitive data using your KMS key. Data is encrypted in flight and at rest. For more information, see Changing an AWS KMS policy for Performance Insights.
Turning Performance Insights on or off when modifying a DB cluster
In the console, you can modify a DB cluster to manage Performance Insights.
To manage Performance Insights for a DB cluster using the console
Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/
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Choose Databases.
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Choose a DB cluster, and choose Modify.
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To turn on Performance Insights, select Enable Performance Insights. To turn off Performance Insights for your DB cluster, choose the option Database Insights – Standard and deselect the option Enable Performance Insights.
If you choose Enable Performance Insights, you have the following options:
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Retention (for the Standard mode of Database Insights only) – The amount of time to retain Performance Insights data. The retention setting in the free tier is Default (7 days). To retain your performance data for longer, specify 1–24 months. For more information about retention periods, see Pricing and data retention for Performance Insights.
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AWS KMS key – Specify your KMS key. Performance Insights encrypts all potentially sensitive data using your KMS key. Data is encrypted in flight and at rest. For more information, see Encrypting Amazon Aurora resources.
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Choose Continue.
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For Scheduling of Modifications, choose Apply immediately. If you choose Apply during the next scheduled maintenance window, your instance ignores this setting and turns on Performance Insights immediately.
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Choose Modify instance.