Creating the RDS Database

The Cluster Manager AMI provided by Aspera has a database and works out of the box, but for deployments where additional resilience is required, Aspera recommends you deploy the Cluster Manager with the Amazon RDS database (RDS). This option has the added benefit of an automatic backups. If you configure the Cluster Manager user data to point to an external database, the Cluster Manager backups the state store data to the specified database.

The Cluster Manager initialization process contains logic to auto-configure itself to use a remote database if the required configuration information is available. The required database configuration information can be passed to the AMI during the launch process via the User Data fields. For more details on passing data to the User Data field, see Launching the Cluster Manager AMI.

The same initialization process can be used to restore an AMI to connect and use an existing MySQL database. For more information about restoring the Cluster Manager, see Restoring a Failed ATCM Instance.

From the AWS Console, go to RDS under the Database section and click Launch a DB Instance.
Select the MySQL engine.
Select MySQL under Production.
Select an instance class from the DB Instance Class drop-down menu. The Cluster Manager requires at minimum a db.m4.large image type. Consider a larger database if you plan on running multiple clusters or high volumes of file transfers.
Enter a database size in the Allocated Storage field. Database size requirements vary depending on the number of clusters and transfers. Aspera recommends a minimum of 10 GB for basic testing and a minimum of 100 GB for production use.
Enter a DB Instance Identifier and a Master Username for the database. Aspera recommends a common name, such as root.
Enter and confirm a secure password for the database.
Important: Do not use special characters when creating a password. Cluster Manager truncates special characters when authenticating to RDS.
The following characters are allowed in password:
- a-z
- A-Z
- 0-9
- < > ; ( ) & # ! ^
Do not use the following special characters when creating a password:

@ " / #
Configure advanced settings.
Choose your VPC from the VPC drop-down menu. Select or create a security group with TCP port 3306 open.
Important: Do not enter a database name. The Cluster Manager automatically creates database names for you.
Click Launch DB Instance.

Your RDS database is now available for use. Select your database from the list to display the Endpoint used to configure the Cluster Manager.