Amazon RDS - Create snapshot

 

Declaration

<AMAWSRDS ACTIVITY="create_snapshot" SNAPSHOTID="text" INSTANCEID="text" RESULTDATASET="text" ACCESSKEY="text" SECRETKEY="AM3m5RnKS1eh50=aME" PROXYHOST="text" USERAGENT="text" PROXYPORT="number" PROXYUSER="text" PROXYPWD="AM3bajY9WlJ018=aME" MAXERRORRETRY="number" SIGNMETHOD="text" SIGNVERSION="number" />

Related Topics   

Description

Creates a recoverable DB snapshot of all data associated with a DB instance.

IMPORTANT: Automate's RDS activities are performed using Amazon's Relational Database Service engine, therefore, administering Amazon RDS through Automate requires a valid Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.

Practical Usage

Used to generate a snapshot of a DB instance. Amazon RDS DB snapshots are complete backups of a DB instance that can be used as a restoration point.

Parameters

connection

Property

Type

Required

Default

Markup

Description

Connection

        

Indicates where Amazon Web Service user credentials and preferences should originate from. This is a design mode parameter used only during task construction and configuration, thus, comprises no markup. The available options are:

  • Host (default) - Specifies that user credentials and/or advanced preferences are configured individually for this activity. This option is normally chosen if only a single activity is required to complete an operation.

  • Session - Specifies that user credentials and/or advanced preferences are obtained from a pre-configured session created in an earlierstep with the use of the RDS - Create session activity. This option is normally chosen if a combination of related activities are required to complete an operation. Linking several activities to a single session eliminates redundancy. Additionally, a single task supports construction and simultaneous execution of multiple sessions, improving efficiency.

Session

Text

Yes if connection is session-based

RDSSession1

SESSION="RDSSession1"

The name of an existing session to attach this activity to. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Session. The default session name is 'RDSSession1'.

Access key

Text

Yes if connection is host-based

(Empty)

ACCESSKEY=

"022QF06E7MXBSH9DHM02"

A 20-character alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies the owner of the AWS service account, similar to a username. This key along with a corresponding secret access key forms a secure information set that AWS uses to confirm a valid user's identity. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Host.

Secret Access key

Text

Yes if connection is host-based

(Empty)

SECRETKEY=

"kWcrlUX5JEDGM/LtmEENI/

aVmYvHNif5zB+d9+ct"

A 40-character string that serves the role as password to access the AWS service account. This along with an associated access key forms a secure information set that EC2 uses to confirm a valid user's identity. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Host.

User agent

Text

No

Automate

USERAGENT="Automate"

The name of the client or application initiating requests to AWS. The default value is 'Automate'. 

Maximum retry on error

Number

No

(Empty)

MAXERRORRETRY="4"

The total amount of times this activity should retry its request to the server before returning an error. Network components can generate errors anytime in the life of a request, thus, implementing retries can increase reliability. 

Service URL

Text

No

(Empty)

SERVICEURL=

"https://rds.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com"

The URL that provides the service endpoint. To make the service call to a different region, you can pass the region-specific endpoint URL. For example, entering  https://rds.us-west-1.amazonaws.com points to US West (Northern California) region. A complete list of EC2 regions, accompanying endpoints and valid protocols can be found below under RDS Endpoints and Regions.

Proxy host

Text

No

(Empty)

PROXYHOST="proxy.host.com"

The host name (i.e. server.domain.com) or IP address (i.e. xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) of the proxy server to use when connecting to AWS.  

Proxy port

Number

No

(Empty)

PROXYPORT="1028"

The port that should be used to connect to the proxy server.

Proxy username

Text

No

(Empty)

PROXYUSER="username"

The username that should be used to authenticate connection with the proxy server (if required).

Proxy password

Text

No

(Empty)

PROXYPWD="encrypted"

The password that should be used to authenticate connection with the proxy server (if required).

Signature method

Text

No

(Empty)

SIGNMETHOD="HmacSHA256"

The signature method to use for signing the request. This provides a valid hashing algorithm for signature calculation. Valid AWS signature methods are HmacSHA1 and HmacSHA256.

Signature version

Number

No

(Empty)

SIGNVERSION="2"

The signature version for signing the request. Valid AWS signature versions are 2 and 4. The difference with version 4 is that it allows you to sign your message using a key that is derived from your secret access key rather than using the secret access key itself.

Snapshot

Property

Type

Required

Default

Markup

Description

Snapshot identifier

Text

Yes

(Empty)

SNAPSHOTID="mySnapshot"

The identifier for the RDS DB snapshot to create. Identifiers restrict returned events to a specific named source.

Instance identifier

Text

Yes

(Empty)

INSTANCEID="mytest-1"

The source identifier for the RDS DB instance from which the snapshot is created.

Create and populate dataset with snapshot information

Text

Yes

(Empty)

RESULTDATASET="mydataset"

The name of the dataset to create and populate with information about the newly created RDS DB snapshot. More on the individual fields that this dataset creates can be found below under Datasets.

 

Description

Error Causes

On Error

Additional notes

RDS endpoints and regions

This table contains a complete list of Amazon Relational Database Service endpoints, along with their corresponding regions and supported protocols.

Endpoint

Region

Protocol
rds.us-east-1.amazonaws.com US East (Northern Virginia) Region HTTP and HTTPS
rds.us-west-2.amazonaws.com US West (Oregon) Region HTTP and HTTPS
rds.us-west-1.amazonaws.com US West (Northern California) Region HTTP and HTTPS
rds.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com EU (Ireland) Region HTTP and HTTPS
rds.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region HTTP and HTTPS
rds.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region HTTP and HTTPS
rds.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region HTTP and HTTPS
rds.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com South America (Sao Paulo) Region HTTP and HTTPS

Datasets

A dataset is a multiple column, multiple row container object. This activity creates and populates a dataset containing a specific set of fields. The table below describes these fields (assuming the dataset name assigned was theDataset).

Name

Type

Return Value

theDataset.AllocatedStorage

Number

Returns the size of the RDS Instance in GB that's allocated for storage.

theDataset.AvailabilityZone

Text

Returns the availability zone where the RDS Instance was launched. (Example: us-east-1b)

theDataset.DBInstanceIdentifier

Text

Returns the source identifier for the RDS Instance from which the snapshot was created.

theDataset.DBSnapshotIdentifier

Text

Returns the identifier for the DB Snapshot. (Example: my-snapshot-id)

theDataset.Engine

Text

Returns the version of the MySQL engine of the RDS Instance. (Example: MySQL 5.1)

theDataset.InstanceCreateTime

Date

Returns the date and time when the DB Instance was created (Example: 2009-09-07T23:45:00Z)

theDataset.MasterUsername

Text

Returns the username used to log onto MySQL.

theDataset.Port

Number

Returns the original port of the database from which the DB Snapshot was taken. (Example: 1234)

theDataset.SnapshotCreateTime

Date

Returns the date and time when the Snapshot was created. (Example: 2009-09-07T23:45:00Z)

theDataset.Status

Options

Returns the current status of the Instanc (i.e. available, creating, deleted, deleting, failed, modifying, rebooting).

example

NOTE:
  • The sample AML code below can be copied and pasted directly into the Steps Panel of the Task Builder.
  • Parameters containing user credentials, files, file paths, and/or other information specific to the task must be customized before the sample code can run successfully.

 

Description: This session-based task demonstrate's some of Automate's RDS activities. It creates a database instance and performs some modifications onto the new instance. Thereafter, it creates a snapshot of the newly modified instance then reboots. The last step ends the session.

 

<AMAWSRDS ACTIVITY="create_session" ACCESSKEY="AKIAJU2LHLMG6BA6BZTA" SECRETKEY="AM3m5RnKS1eh50=aME" USERAGENT="Automate" SESSION="MySession" />

<AMAWSRDS INSTANCEID="myRDSDatabase" INSTANCETYPE="db.m1.small" ZONE="us-east-1a" MASTERUSER="myName" MASTERPWD="AM16wP88TJPA0FX78Oon4bvjg==aME" PORT="3306" STORAGE="5" PROVIDER="session_based" SESSION="MySession" />

<AMAWSRDS ACTIVITY="modify_instance" INSTANCEID="myRDSDatabase" INSTANCETYPE="db.m1.large" STORAGE="10" APPLYFAST="yes" PROVIDER="session_based" SESSION="MySession" />

<AMAWSRDS ACTIVITY="create_snapshot" SNAPSHOTID="rdsSnap" INSTANCEID="myRDSDatabase" RESULTDATASET="theSnap" PROVIDER="session_based" SESSION="MySession" />

<AMAWSRDS ACTIVITY="reboot_instance" INSTANCEID="myRDSDatabase" PROVIDER="session_based" SESSION="MySession" />

<AMAWSRDS ACTIVITY="end_session" SESSION="MySession" />