Incremental Replication

5 minutes 5 Questions

One of the key features of AWS SMS is its ability to perform incremental replication of server workloads. When performing a migration, SMS tracks changes to on-premises servers or virtual machines and only replicates the changed data to reduce bandwidth consumption and improve replication times. This approach ensures a more efficient migration process by reducing the amount of time and resources required to transfer server workloads while also minimizing the impact on production systems to ensure negligible downtime during migration.

Guide on Incremental Replication in AWS Server Migration Service

Incremental Replication is a critical concept in AWS Server Migration Service.

What is Incremental Replication?
Incremental Replication is a feature on AWS Server Migration Service which allows applications to be replicated as frequently as every 5 minutes, ensuring very low recovery point objectives (RPO). This way, changes made to the application server can be automatically updated on the replicated server through delta replication.

Why is it important?
It's importance lies in minimizing loss of data while reducing bandwidth consumption. Incremental replication ensures that only the changes since the last replication are transmitted, not the entire application, thereby conserving bandwidth and storage.

How it works?
AWS Server Migration Service first creates full replication of the server then incrementally tracks and replicates changes from the source server to AWS. The replicated servers are stored as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), and in the event of a disaster or for testing purposes, these servers can be launched and synchronized with minimal configuration.

Exam Tips - Answering Questions on Incremental Replication
In exam scenario, remember the following points:

Understand the concept of Incremental Replication and its implications on bandwidth and storage savings.
Be aware that AWS Server Migration Service allows for automated replication every 5 minutes.
Recognize that the result of Incremental Replication are stored as AMIs which can be launched when required.

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Question 1

You are developing a multi-tier architecture application for a client where DynamoDB is used as the database layer. The client wants to enable incremental replication from the primary AWS account to another AWS account for DR purposes. Which approach should you choose?

Enable read replicas Copy the DynamoDB table Use Amazon Kinesis Use DynamoDB Streams and AWS Lambda

Correct Answer: Use DynamoDB Streams and AWS Lambda

For incremental replication cross-account, you can use DynamoDB Streams that provide near-real-time incremental replication. By combining it with Lambda, you can execute custom code for each item change on the source table. The other methods either provide full replication or do not support replication across accounts.

Question 2

A company wants to replicate its RDS data from a primary instance to a read replica to offload read traffic. They want to ensure that replication is updated incrementally. Which replication option should they choose?

MSSQL native replication AWS Database Migration Service Elastic Block Store (EBS) snapshots Snapshot replication

Correct Answer: MSSQL native replication

For incremental replication in RDS, the read replicas use the MSSQL native replication. Snapshot replication, EBS snapshots, Amazon S3 replication, and DataSync work for creating point-in-time backups, while AWS Database Migration Service is used for migrating data between databases, not for incremental replication.

Question 3

A gaming company wants to enable incremental replication for its Aurora DB cluster. They have read-heavy workloads on their production database and want to offload the incoming read traffic to read replicas. Which is the most cost-effective solution?

Deploy a third-party database replication tool Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams Create multiple MySQL read replicas Create multiple Amazon Aurora replicas

Correct Answer: Create multiple Amazon Aurora replicas

In the given scenario, Amazon Aurora replicas provide the most cost-effective solution for incremental replication as it is natively supported and minimizes downtime. Other solutions involve additional costs, complex setup, or do not provide native support for incremental replication and read traffic offloading.

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