AWS Glossary
Amazon Aurora DSQL
Aurora DSQL is the serverless distributed SQL database from AWS — Postgres-compatible, multi-region active-active, with strong consistency and unlimited horizontal scale.
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Summary
Aurora DSQL is the serverless distributed SQL database from AWS — Postgres-compatible, multi-region active-active, with strong consistency and unlimited horizontal scale.
Key Facts
- • Aurora DSQL is the serverless distributed SQL database from AWS — Postgres-compatible, multi-region active-active, with strong consistency and unlimited horizontal scale
- • Definition Amazon Aurora DSQL is a serverless distributed SQL database announced at re:Invent 2024
- • It is Postgres-compatible at the wire-protocol level, scales horizontally without sharding, and runs active-active across multiple AWS Regions with single-digit millisecond writes from each region
- • Aurora DSQL targets the same workloads as Google Spanner and CockroachDB while staying API-compatible with Postgres tooling
- • Multi-region** — Active-active up to 3+ regions at GA, with synchronous-style strong consistency
Entity Definitions
- RDS
- RDS is an AWS service relevant to amazon aurora dsql.
- Amazon RDS
- Amazon RDS is an AWS service relevant to amazon aurora dsql.
- Aurora
- Aurora is an AWS service relevant to amazon aurora dsql.
- Amazon Aurora
- Amazon Aurora is an AWS service relevant to amazon aurora dsql.
- DynamoDB
- DynamoDB is an AWS service relevant to amazon aurora dsql.
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon DynamoDB is an AWS service relevant to amazon aurora dsql.
- Athena
- Athena is an AWS service relevant to amazon aurora dsql.
- serverless
- serverless is a cloud computing concept relevant to amazon aurora dsql.
Related Content
- AWS RDS CONSULTING — Related service
Definition
Amazon Aurora DSQL is a serverless distributed SQL database announced at re:Invent 2024. It is Postgres-compatible at the wire-protocol level, scales horizontally without sharding, and runs active-active across multiple AWS Regions with single-digit millisecond writes from each region. Aurora DSQL targets the same workloads as Google Spanner and CockroachDB while staying API-compatible with Postgres tooling.
What makes DSQL different from Aurora
| Aspect | Aurora (Postgres / MySQL) | Aurora DSQL |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Single-region writer, multi-AZ replicas | Multi-region active-active |
| Consistency | Strong within region | Strong across regions |
| Scaling | Vertical + read replicas | Horizontal, automatic |
| Failure model | AZ-level failover | Region-level resilience |
| Compute model | Provisioned or Serverless v2 | Fully serverless |
| Use cases | OLTP, mixed workloads | Global OLTP, multi-region SaaS |
Capabilities
- Postgres compatibility — Most Postgres SQL and ecosystem tools work unchanged.
- No vacuum, no failover — DSQL handles MVCC garbage collection and node replacement transparently.
- Pay-per-request pricing — Read-request units and write-request units, plus storage.
- Optimistic concurrency — Snapshot isolation; transactions that conflict on commit get a retriable error.
- Multi-region — Active-active up to 3+ regions at GA, with synchronous-style strong consistency.
When to use Aurora DSQL
- Global SaaS with users in multiple regions — Single logical database with local latency
- Workloads needing strong cross-region consistency — Financial ledgers, inventory, multi-region session state
- You want serverless without capacity planning — DSQL is the only Aurora variant with zero ops
When not to use Aurora DSQL
- Long-running transactions or large batch updates — DSQL is tuned for short OLTP transactions
- Heavy stored procedures or PL/pgSQL — Limited support at GA
- Single-region workloads with cost sensitivity — Aurora Serverless v2 is cheaper
Common mistakes
Mistake 1: Treating DSQL like Aurora. Optimistic concurrency means application retries are normal — your client must handle commit-time conflicts.
Mistake 2: Using DSQL for analytics. It is an OLTP database — push analytics to Redshift, Athena, or Aurora HTAP.
Mistake 3: Forgetting region-failover cost. Active-active writes incur replication request-units in each connected region.
Related AWS Services
- Amazon Aurora (Postgres/MySQL) — Single-region default
- Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables — NoSQL multi-region alternative
- AWS DMS — Migration helper for moving into DSQL
- Amazon RDS Proxy — Connection pooling (compatibility roadmap as DSQL matures)
Related FactualMinds Content
Related Services
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