A municipal DBA team debates self-managing MySQL on Amazon EC2 versus using Amazon RDS. From a cloud economics and operations view, what is the key distinction?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Self-managing MySQL on EC2 is like owning the whole restaurant kitchen; RDS is closer to a managed kitchen where someone else handles more of the stove maintenance. You still own the recipes and the data, but you shed a lot of undifferentiated admin. That is the economics of managed services.
Full Explanation
Managed AWS services such as Amazon RDS reduce customer operational burden for tasks like engine patching and automated backups relative to running the database yourself on EC2. Customers still retain responsibility for data, access, and application design. Cloud Practitioner items emphasize recognizing that managed-service shift.