This topic describes how to unlock or rebuild an expired or overdue ApsaraDB for RDS instance.

Warning If your RDS instance expires or is overdue, it may be stopped. You will be notified in such cases. To ensure service availability, you must immediately renew your RDS instance or top up your Alibaba Cloud account.
Billing method Instance status Operation
Subscription
  • If you have enabled auto-renewal but your RDS instance cannot be renewed:
    • During the first to the fifteenth days after your RDS instance expires, the instance still runs normally.
    • On the sixteenth day after your RDS instance expires, the instance is stopped.
    • On the thirty-first day after your RDS instance expires, the instance is released. However, the backups of the instance are still retained until the thirty-eighth day.
    • On the thirty-ninth day after your RDS instance expires, the backups of the instance are released.
  • If you have not enabled auto-renewal:
    • During the first to fifteenth days after your RDS instance expires, the instance is stopped.
    • On the sixteenth day after your RDS instance expires, the instance is released. However, the backups of the instance are still retained until the twenty-third day.
    • On the twenty-fourth day after your RDS instance expires, the backups of the instance are released.
  • Before your RDS instance is released, you can manually renew the instance. The instance is immediately available. For more information, see Manually renew an RDS MySQL instance.
  • After your RDS instance is released and before its backups are released, you can rebuild the instance from the recycle bin. This allows you to restore the data of your RDS instance to a new RDS instance. For more information, see Manage ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instances in the recycle bin. The time that is required for the restoration varies based on the performance and data volume of your RDS instance.
  • After the backups are released, your RDS instance cannot be restored.
Pay-as-you-go If the balance in your Alibaba Cloud account is insufficient, all of the pay-as-you-go-billed instances under this account become overdue.
  • During the first to fifteenth days after your RDS instance expires, the instance still runs normally.
  • During the sixteenth to thirtieth days after your RDS instance expires, the instance is stopped.
  • On the thirty-first day after your RDS instance expires, the instance and its backups are released and cannot be restored.
  • Before the backups of your RDS instance are released, check the payment method of your Alibaba Cloud account in the Billing Management console.
  • After the backups are released, your RDS instance cannot be restored.
Note If your RDS instance runs MySQL, its cross-region backups are still retained after it is released due to expiration or overdue payments. In addition, the backups that remain with the specified retention period are also retained. For more information, see Back up an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance across regions and Back up an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.

Suggestions

  • Before your subscription-billed RDS instance expires, we recommend that you manually renew the instance or enable auto-renewal for the instance. For more information, see Manually renew an RDS MySQL instance and Configure auto-renewal.
  • Make sure that the balance in your Alibaba Cloud account is sufficient.