How to Copy/Move/Migrate RDS Instances to the Same AWS Region and AWS Account without Downtime

5 min readOct 17, 2020

In this story, we are going to learn, step by step, two ways to migrate an RDS Database to the Same AWS Region and AWS Account, using AWS Console and the new KopiCloud Move RDS tool, without downtime (*).

Note: For this example, we will use SQL Server as RDS engine, however this process is applicable to other RDS databases engines, but not for clusters.

When we need to move an existing RDS SQL Server database (or other RDS engine) the process is pretty complex, in particular when you need to move to another AWS Account.

There are 4 different scenarios when we will look to copy/move/migrate an RDS database:

Copy/Move/Migrate an RDS database to the same AWS region on the same AWS account (this story).
Copy/Move/Migrate an RDS database to a different AWS region on the same AWS account.
Copy/Move/Migrate an RDS database to the same AWS region on a different AWS account.
Copy/Move/Migrate an RDS database to a different AWS region on a different AWS account.

(*) Downtime maybe will be required to re-point your application to the new database, but the process will not modify your original RDS instance. The process of migration will keep your original RDS untouched. The process creates a copy of the source RDS instance and the instance will continue running without any interruption.

1. Creating a new DB Subnet

Before we start moving an RDS database, we will need a DB Subnet located on the AWS region and AWS account where we are going to host our new database.

1.1. Creating a new DB Subnet using the AWS Console

Click on the Create DB Subnet Group button on the top.

Then enter the DB subnet name and description, and select the VPC.

We select all Availabilities Zones (AZs) and Subnets that we want and click the Create button.

1.2. Creating a new DB Subnet using the KopiCloud Move RDS tool

Click on the Create RDS DB Subnet icon

Enter the DB subnet name and description, select the AWS region and the VPC and click on the Create button.

2. Copy / Move / Migrate an RDS database to the same AWS region on the same AWS account

This is the simple process of these 4 scenarios, and it very useful when we want to create a copy of an RDS instance for testing or move an RDS instance to a new DB Subnet.

2.1. Copy / Move / Migrate an RDS database to the same AWS region on the same AWS account using the AWS Console

We open the AWS Console and select the RDS service.

On the left menu, click on the Databases option.

We select the database to move, and on the Actions menu, click on the Take snapshot option.

Then we enter a name for the snapshot:

And now we need to wait a few minutes until the snapshot status is available.

Then, we select the snapshot, click the Actions menu, and select the Restore Snapshot option.

then we select the RDS Database Engine:

the name for the new RDS Instance:

then we select the VPC, the DB Subnet group, and other settings:

the RDS Instance size, storage size, and SQL Server Windows Authentication.

and more parameters, and finally we press the Restore DB Instance button.

2.2. Copy / Move / Migrate an RDS database to the same AWS region on the same AWS account using the KopiCloud Move RDS tool

We open the KopiCloud Move RDS tool and select the same source and destination AWS account and AWS region, then click the Next button.

We select the database, click the Select Database button and click the Next button.

We enter a name for the new RDS database instance, select the database engine type, database instance type, availability zone, and the DB subnet, then we click the Move RDS DB button.

And that it! The migration process starts and we can take a look to the log in real-time, until the process is completed.

KopiCloud Move RDS SQL Server is available as a free download at https://www.kopicloud.com

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