Step 2 (RDS): Setup Amazon RDS Postgres

How to setup Amazon RDS Postgres?

Go to your AWS account

If you have an account in AWS, you can log in here (You may setup a new one too).

1. After your log in to AWS, click the Services dropdown on your left-side.

2. Click on RDS.

3. Select Region from the drop-down on your right.

4. Click on Instances on the sidebar on your left.

5. Click Launch DB Instance in the main window.

6. On Step 1 (Select Engine), from the list of Engines that appear, click on the PostgreSQL icon and then click on Select.

7. On Step 2 at the Production? page asks if you are planning to use the DB instance you are creating for production or Test.

For Production you may choose the failover option Multi-AZ and the Provisioned IOPS storage option. Click Next Step when you are finished.

8. At Step 3 you will need to Specify DB Details.

Instance Specifications:
License Model: PostgreSQL has only one license model. Select the default.
DB Engine Version: Select the version of PostgreSQL you want to use.
DB Instance Class: Selects the instance (machine) your database will run on.
Multi-AZ Deployment: Select Yes to have a standby backup machine in a different Availability Zone than your the DB instance.
Storage Type: Specify the storage disk type you’d like to use.
Allocated Storage: Allocate storage for your database.
Provisioned IOPS: Specify what performance guarantees on disk I/O.

If you need more detailed setup see the relevant AWS Guide.

Database settings:
DB Instance Identifier: Choose a unique identifier for the database that must be unique for your AWS account in the current region.
Master Username: A username you will use to log in to your instance.
Master Password: Your password 🙂

9. At Step 4 you will need to Configure the Advanced Settings.

Network & Security:
VPC: The Virtual Private Cloud you want your server to be. If you have a VPC setup select it. If not, select Create New VPC.
Subnet Group: The subnets that the DB instances can use in the VPC. If you have a DB Subnet Group setup select it. If not, select Create new DB Subnet Group.
Publicly Accessible: Select Yes to give the DB instance a public IP address, meaning that it will be accessible outside the VPC.
Availability Zone: Select the availability zone you want for your instance. Else leave it on the default No Preference.
VPC Security Groups: The traffic rules concerning the traffic from / to your instances. If you have a VPC security group select it. If not, select the default VPC.

Database Options:
Database Name: (optional) The name of your Postgres database to be created.If you do not provide a default will be created automatically.
Database Port: The port you want to use to access the database. PostgreSQL default is port 5432.
DB Parameter Group: A configuration applied to the database. If you haven’t created one then choose the default.
Option Group: More options of the database. Use the default value unless you have created your own option group.
Copy Tags To Snapshots: check if you want the tags metadata on DB instances copied to corresponding instance snapshots.
Enable Encryption: Specify if you want the database and snapshots to be encrypted.

Backup:
Backup Retention Period: Set the number of days you want automatic backups of your database to be retained. Always keep on mind on the cost that this may incurr.
Backup Window: Select the time of day you’d like you backup to happen.

Maintenance:
Auto Minor Version Upgrade: Select to enable your DB instance to receive minor DB engine version upgrades automatically when they become available.
Maintenance Window: Select a 30 minute time window that you prefer updates and other maintenance to happen. If time period doesn’t matter, select No Preference.

10. When you’re finished with the setup, click Launch DB Instance. On the final page of the wizard, click Close.

11. On the Amazon RDS console, at Instances tab you should see the new DB instance appears in the list. When its status is Available then it is ready for use.