More and more telecommunication companies are moving their databases to the cloud. Instead of relying on on-premise, perpetually on servers – which can be costly to operate and maintain – many want to migrate to the fully managed relational database engine Amazon Aurora, using Amazon Aurora Serverless for the migration. Wipro works with clients in many sectors on this challenge – and has particularly strong experience with telcos – and understands the two key issues: why a telco should use Aurora Serverless and how to use it effectively.

First: the why. Telcos should strongly consider the move to Aurora Serverless if their answer is “yes” to these issues: 

• They prefer a pay-as-you-go pricing model for important but non-critical databases (for critical databases, telcos should probably opt for a more long-term reserved and committed cost model). 
• They have non-production databases that don’t need 24/7 uptime. 
• They prefer not managing capacity for their databases. 
• They need or want to scale up and down instantly depending on demand. 

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Aurora Serverless manages all the normal operating requirements automatically and is (typically) less expensive than managing servers and the people to operate them.

It’s probably quite clear that the decision to go with Aurora Serverless is quite straightforward. But the second issue – how to use Aurora Serverless effectively – is more complex. Essentially, there are two choices: the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) and third-party data migration and replication tools. To make the best choice, it is essential to understand the key drivers of the migration approaches. The chart below offers a comparative view of using AWS DMS over traditional data migration tools:

Wipro has used both of the above approaches for migration; for most telcos, AWS DMS is the best choice. The reality is that migrations can be complex, but getting it right is worth the effort. It will reduce the need for manual intervention during migration as well as efforts required for database maintenance after the migration. 

AWS DMS can be used to migrate a database from AWS EC2 (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud) or from AWS RDS (Amazon Relational Database Service) with four steps:

• First, migrate data from an on-premise database, RDS, or EC2 to an intermediate Aurora RDS using AWS DMS.
• Next, run assessments to validate the target database objects and sanity post-migration. 
• When the assessment reports are on the mark, make a back-up of the Aurora RDS instance.
• Finally, provision Aurora Serverless from this backup.

In other words, AWS DMS can be used to migrate to Aurora Serverless, though this capability is currently not offered out-of-the box by AWS.

Critical success factors

What else is important to make the migration successful? Wipro’s work with telco clients has generated many keys to success:

• Assess migration compatibility of the source data with the target database using AWS Schema Conversion Tool to finalize the optimum database engine to be used as the target database.
• Replication instance size should be big enough to support the source and target replication.
• Use in-line LOB (large binary objects) mode to help the DMS run faster. For LOB columns above 1024 KB, AWS DMS uses full LOB mode, which is slowest. 
• Increase the commit rate of the batch from the default of 10,000 to a higher number to maximize the number of records transferred together. 
• Increase “maximum number of tables to load in parallel” slightly to be greater than default value of 8 to improve performance only when using a large replication server. 
• Use parallel load for a table using partition and sub-partition to accelerate load speed.
• With a huge number of tables are to be loaded, splitting the replication task with a smaller number of tables in each task will give better performance (the task will run in parallel).
• Optimize load order to load smaller tables before larger ones – or vice versa depending on the need.
• Ensure adequate bandwidth availability between source and target; insufficient bandwidth can subsequently reduce the data transfer time and upsurge the network cost.

The goal of moving to the cloud should not be solely a way to save costs – it should be done in a way that saves costs but also ensures a seamless transition to the new infrastructure. Wipro can help companies think through these issues to help them make the move efficiently and effectively.

Abhishek Tanwar
Enterprise Architect

Abhishek Tanwar is an Enterprise Architect leading the Cloud Transformation program for T-Mobile Netherlands as part of Wipro’s Domain & Consulting group. He has 15+ years of experience working with various service providers across Europe and southeast Asia in B/OSS and digital domain.

Deepti Shriganesh Bhide
Senior Consultant

Deepti Bhide is a Solution Lead representing the Cloud Transformation team in T-Mobile Netherlands, as part of Wipro’s Domain & Consulting team. She has 14+ years of experience working with various service providers across Europe.