How to copy an AWS RDS database, NOT the entire instance

Question

I am somewhat new to AWS RDS and their terminology. What they call a "database" seems to me to be an SQL Server instance. I have a database (as defined by SSMS--with tables, data, stored procedures, etc.) on RDS named "prod" and I want to duplicate it for testing purposes to be named "test" with all the content, and leave "prod" as-is.

All the instructions I've found by doing many, many searches seem to be related to duplicating the entire instance. Can someone help me with instructions on how to create a duplicate of just the (ssms term) database?

Thanks in advance for any help!

PS What does AWS/RDS call the object that is equivalent to an SSMS database?

I've found multiple posts here about duplicating an entire instance. It could be that I don't fully understand the terminology because I know this must be a common task but I am not understanding how to do it.

This is a production environment so I am proceeding very cautiously. I do have nightly snapshots made so I know I could recover but would rather do it right the first time.

Answer 1

What you are looking for can't really be done via any RDS commands/tools/interface. RDS only concerns itself with the database server itself, and isn't really even aware of the different databases, schemas, tables, etc. you may have created on the server.

You will need to use the tools for the DBMS you are using, in this case it sounds like you are using Microsoft SQL Server, so you will need to use MS SQL Server tools (perhaps running on an EC2 instance) to dump a single database to a file, and then load it into another database.

PS What does AWS/RDS call the object that is equivalent to an SSMS database?

An RDS database is a "database server ". You might also see it called a "database instance". AWS/RDS calls the object equivalent to an SSMS database simply a database. The terminology is confusing because both the physical server/computer running the database software, and the logical grouping of tables/logs/data inside the software are both generally referred to as a "database".

Answer 2

I usually use a command like this to backup a single database to s3:

exec msdb.dbo.rds_backup_database @source_db_name='<mydatabasename>', @S3_arn_to_backup_to='arn:aws:s3:::<mys3objectname>', @type='FULL'

There is a bit of one-time configuration you need to do first, see the link below, and then its as simple as executing commands from SSMS to backup a database to S3 and then restoring it from S3 - maybe not exactly what you are looking for, but it works great.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/SQLServer.Procedural.Importing.html