Hey folks! I'm looking for some advice before I potentially delete what seems to be an unused Aurora MySQL cluster. Here's the situation: I have multiple environments (dev, staging, prod) running Dockerized apps on EC2 instances with CI/CD via Bitbucket Pipelines. We primarily use MySQL containers (v8.0.25) internally, and I suspect the Aurora MySQL (v5.7) was provisioned during an old migration attempt. It shows less than 1 GiB in storage, and I've been monitoring it closely.
Here's what I found so far:
- CloudWatch shows no active connections for over 7 days and reports low CPU usage with no IOPS.
- I've checked for any environment variables or secrets pointing to the Aurora endpoint, but there are none.
- CloudTrail doesn't show any query activity targeting Aurora either.
- My local MySQL DB is around 376 MB, while the Aurora snapshot is just around 1 GiB.
The issue I'm facing is that I don't have the current password for the Aurora cluster, as I inherited this setup from developers who are no longer available. I'm hesitant to reset the password just to log in, as it might disrupt anything silently using that database.
Basically, I want to ensure the Aurora instance is truly unused before I delete it. Here are my specific questions:
1. Am I missing any edge cases?
2. Is it safe to change the Aurora master password to log in?
3. If I've already made a snapshot, is it safe to delete the cluster?
4. Does a ~1 GiB snapshot sound normal for a ~376 MB database?
Thanks in advance for any insights!
4 Answers
You could just shut down the Aurora instance instead of deleting it to see if anything breaks. If it causes issues, you’ll know it’s in use. It’s like a ‘scream test’.
With no active connections or IOPS, it would be pretty wild if you ended up breaking a production cron job or something just by trying to log into Aurora.
You can make a snapshot of the Aurora instance and create a new DB to reset the password freely without impacting the existing setup.
If you're seeing zero connections, I'd say it's probably safe to proceed. But if you want to play it extra safe, just turn off Aurora. It can stay in that state for up to 7 days—you can monitor for any problems during that time. You’d only pay for storage, which is nice.
You know, that’s a great idea! I can’t believe I didn’t think of stopping it temporarily. I’ll definitely try this out. Thanks!
Ahhh, the scream test method—classic! Totally respect that approach.