Exploring Amazon Redshift as PaaS for Effective Database Migration

This report provides an overview of using Amazon Redshift as a Platform as a Service (PaaS) for database migration. It discusses how PaaS cloud services like Amazon Redshift offer advantages by eliminating the need for users to purchase and maintain hardware and software solutions. The report highlights Amazon Redshift's capabilities in supporting both homogeneous and heterogeneous data migrations from various open-source and commercial databases. It details important considerations when migrating databases to Amazon Redshift, including schema structure, data types, database code compatibility, data preservation, integrity, security, and availability. The AWS Schema Conversion Tool and AWS Database Migration Service are mentioned as helpful tools in the migration process, particularly for heterogeneous migrations. In conclusion, the report emphasizes the benefits of PaaS and the importance of factors like data security and compatibility when migrating to Amazon Redshift.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Amazon Redshift
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Platform as a Service - Amazon Redshift
PaaS is a cloud computing models in which cloud computing providers (third party)
provides both software and hardware application services tools needed for application
development to individual users and organizations over the internet. PaaS cloud providers host
the both software and hardware on their own infrastructure. As a result, PaaS users do not have
to install their own software and hardware components for them to run any new applications.
Amazon Redshift, RDS and DynamoDB are AWS PaaS products that have been
developed to make it less onerous for clients to manage both commercial SQL and NoSQL
database types. Clients are able to offload routing database maintenance to the PaaS subsystems
layer.
Business/Commercial applications suited for Amazon Redshift.
Amazon Redshift can help an individual or an organization migrate their data from most
of the commonly used open source and commercial databases. Amazon Redshift supports both
homogeneous data migration for instance from Amazon Redshift to Amazon Redshift or from
Oracle to Oracle and heterogeneous data migrations such as from Amazon Redshift to Oracle or
moves data between one relational database and another (Narasimhan, 2018). Amazon Redshift
can also move data between NoSQL, text-based targets and SQL.
Considerations when migrating your database from legacy to the Redshift scheme.
When carrying out heterogeneous database migration, the source database and the target
database are different, for instance from Oracle to Amazon Redshift. In these case,
considerations of the structure of the schema, data types, and database code have to be put in
place because they are different for the two databases (Ellison, Calinescu, & Paige, 2018). Thus,
when doing heterogeneous database migration, you will need the AWS Schema Conversion Tool

to help in converting the source schema and database code so that it can match that of the target
database. AWS Database Migration Service helps in doing all the data type conversions during
this database migration. The source database can be in your own premises outside AWS. On the
other hand, the target database can be Amazon Redshift.
When carrying out homogeneous database migration, both the source database and the
target database are the same or are compatible like in the case of Oracle and Amazon Redshift.
Since the data types, schema structure and database code are the same or compatible,
homogeneous database migration is a one-step process and does not require converting of data
types, schema structure and database code (Arif, 2019). Here, a database administrator creates a
migration task with connections to both the source database and the target database and then with
the help of AWS Database Migration Service, the process is done with only one click of a
button. The source database can be in your own premises outside AWS. On the other hand, the
target database can be Amazon Redshift.
Other considerations when migrating your database to Amazon Redshift include data
preservation, data integrity, data security, and data availability. The database being migrated
must be preserved and secured to ensure no unauthorized access can be made. The migrated
database has to maintain both the integrity of the data and that of the whole database. Also, since
Amazon Redshift is provided through a PaaS, the migration process must ensure that the
resulting database is available for use at all times (Ramel, 2016).
In conclusion, PaaS cloud services offer users incredible advantages as they do not have
to purchase or maintain both hardware and software solutions. PaaS applications like Amazon
Redshift has applications that support the process of database migration. There are factors for
considerations when migrating to Amazon Redshift like data security and data compatibility.

References
Arif, M. (2019, February 7). An Overview of Migration Services Offered By AWS - DZone Cloud.
Retrieved April 13, 2019, from dzone.com website: https://dzone.com/articles/an-overview-of-
migration-services-offered-by-aws
Ellison, M., Calinescu, R., & Paige, R. F. (2018). Evaluating cloud database migration options
using workload models. Journal of Cloud Computing, 7(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13677-
018-0108-5
Narasimhan G., L. (2018). Database Migration on Premises to AWS RDS. EAI Endorsed
Transactions on Cloud Systems, 3(11), 154463. https://doi.org/10.4108/eai.11-4-2018.154463
Ramel, D. (2016, July 15). New Functionality for AWS Database Migration Service -. Retrieved
April 13, 2019, from AWSInsider website: https://awsinsider.net/articles/2016/07/15/database-
migration-upgrade.aspx