Creating Database on AWS and using it on MySQL Workbench

The relational databases in AWS are under the name of RDS which stands for Relational Database Service. AWS has a lot of different databases supported like Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server. You can use the AWS Database Migration Service to easily migrate or replicate your existing databases to Amazon RDS.
Creating and using a database on AWS can be a little tricky if you are new to it. In this blog I will show you how to create a database in RDS and how to connect to it from MySQL Workbench.

Steps for creating database instance on AWS RDS

• go to AWS console.
• Search for RDS or go to this link
• Click on instances

• click on Launch DB instance
• Select MySQL and click Next

• In the next page select Dev/Test MySQL and click Next
• In the Instance specifications, Check the Only enable the options eligible for RDS free usage tier. By checking this the options available in the next setting DB instance class is set to db.t2.micro. If you want a bigger database instance you can uncheck this and select the DB instance class which you want. Please keep in mind that you would be billed accordingly.

• Leave all other options to the default value in Instance specifications.
• In the Settings part, put in your DB instance identifier, username and password. This username and password would be required to access you database later from MySQL Workbench.

• Click on Next
• In Network & Security part set Public accessibility to Yes. This setting will be required to connect from MySQL Workbench.

• Leave all other settings to default value.
• In Database options part, Put in your database name.
• You can leave all other options on this page to the default value.
• Click on Launch DB Instance at the bottom of the page.
• It will take 10-12 minutes to create your DB instance.

Steps for connecting to AWS RDS DB instance from MySQL workbench

• On your AWS console go to RDS and click on instances. Here you will see the DB instance you just created. 
• Click on the DB instance to see its details.
• On you DB instance page scroll down to security groups.

• Here on the security group for Inbound traffic, you will see an IP address written in the rule. This was your public IP address from which you created the database instance. What this means is it will only allow you to connect to this database instance from this IP address. We want it to be able to connect from anywhere. So to do this we need to edit this rule. 
• Click on the security group for Inbound connection.
• It will open a new page. On this page click on the Inbound tab of the security group.

• Click on edit. 

• Remove the IP address from source and put 0.0.0.0/0 . It should look like this.

• Click on Save to save the settings. You have changed the security settings. You will now be able to connect to this database instance from any IP.

 

• To connect to a database we need four things, host, port, username and password.
• To see where your database instance is hosted go to your database instance page. See the Connect part. Here you will see the endpoint and the port. The endpoint is the host. Copy these values.
• Open MySQL Workbench.
• Click on the + next to MySQL Connections.

• Enter any name in Connection Name 
• Enter the host, port, username.
• Click on test connection
• If the host, port and username is right it will ask for your password, enter it.
• If the password is right it will show a success message. Now just click on OK to save it.