Restoring an Amazon RDS Instance Using Snapshots

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Restoring an Amazon RDS Instance Using Snapshots

A critical part of database management is being able to recover your data after corruption or accidental deletion has occurred. In this hands-on lab, we'll use the point-in-time restore capability of RDS automated snapshots to restore a database and bring a site back up. **NOTE**: This lab may take up to 15 minutes to fully start due to the number of resources that need to be provisioned.

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Lab Info

Level

Intermediate

Last updated

Sep 18, 2025

Duration

1h 30m

Challenge

Create an RDS Snapshot
Create a manual snapshot of the existing RDS database in this environment.
1. In the RDS console, choose the running instance.
2. Take a snapshot with the name wordpress-.
Challenge

Log in to the Bastion Host and Delete Database Data
1. Log in to the lab instance via SSH using the credentials for the lab.
2. Install the MySQL command line.
3. Connect to the MySQL instance using the RDS endpoint with the user wpuser and the password Password1.
4. Switch to the WordPress database.
5. Delete the wp_posts table.
Challenge

Restore an RDS Database from a Snapshot
1. In the RDS console, navigate to snapshots.
2. Restore the database wordpress-database using the snapshot you created and name the recovered database instance *wordpress-recovery" and use availability zone us-east-1b.
3. Launch the database instance.
Challenge

Rename Database Instances
1. In the RDS console, modify the wordpress-database instance, and change the DB instance identifier from "wordpress-database" to "wordpress-corrupt".
2. Click Continue.
3. Select Apply Immediately.
4. Click Modify DB Instance.
5. Modify the "wordpress-recovery" database instance to "wordpress-database".
6. Visit the website and observe that the site has been restored.

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