All Products
Search
Document Center

OpenSearch:Connect to a cross-region ApsaraDB RDS or PolarDB data source

Last Updated:Feb 27, 2026

OpenSearch High-performance Search Edition requires that ApsaraDB RDS and PolarDB data sources reside in the same region as your OpenSearch instance. If your database is in a different region, use one of the solutions described in this topic to bridge the data into OpenSearch.

The data source instances must be under the same Alibaba Cloud account as your OpenSearch instance. The solutions in this topic also apply to self-managed MySQL databases.

Solution overview

Three solutions are available, each with different trade-offs in data freshness, complexity, and cost.

DTSAPI or SDK + DTSMaxCompute
Full data transferSupportedSupportedSupported
Incremental data transferSupportedSupportedSupported. Incremental data is transferred on a daily basis.
Required resourcesApsaraDB RDS, and full data migration and incremental data migration in DTSDevelopment and debugging of API operations or SDKs, and full data migration in DTSMaxCompute Professional Edition (subscription), exclusive cluster resources, Cloud Enterprise Network (CEN), Resource Access Management (RAM), and region-based access control
DifficultyEasyMediumHard
Possible costsFees for ApsaraDB RDS and pay-as-you-go DTS instancesFees for ApsaraDB RDS and full data migration in DTSFees for MaxCompute resources and exclusive clusters

When to use each solution

  • DTS migration: Best for most use cases. Provides near-real-time full and incremental data synchronization with minimal setup effort.

  • DTS full migration + API push: Best when you need near-real-time incremental updates and have existing application logic to push changes through the OpenSearch API or SDK.

  • MaxCompute: Best for batch analytics workloads where daily data refresh is acceptable. Does not ensure real-time data transfer.

Before you begin

Important

For details about the limits, configurations, and billing rules of Data Transmission Service (DTS) tasks, see the following topics:

Procedure (DTS migration)

Step 1: Create an ApsaraDB RDS or PolarDB instance in the OpenSearch region

  1. Purchase an ApsaraDB RDS or PolarDB instance in the same region as OpenSearch.

  2. Create a database and a database account. The account must have DDL and DML permissions.

Step 2: Create and configure a DTS task

  1. Purchase a DTS instance. If this is your first time using DTS, activate the service first.

  2. Select the region in which OpenSearch is activated.

  3. Configure a data migration task. For more information, see Data Migration. > Note: When migrating data from an ApsaraDB RDS instance across regions, connect to the source instance through its public endpoint. Apply for a public endpoint in the ApsaraDB RDS console. > Note: The IP address whitelist of the source ApsaraDB RDS instance does not need additional configuration. The connectivity test passes with only 127.0.0.1 in the whitelist.

Step 3: Create an OpenSearch application

  1. After the full data migration task is complete, configure an application in the OpenSearch console.

  2. Use the destination ApsaraDB RDS or PolarDB instance as the data source to create the application schema. For more information, see Data sources.

  3. Real-time data transfer performance depends on both the data migration speed and the data import speed into OpenSearch. Under normal conditions, there is no significant delay. For more information about OpenSearch, see OpenSearch documentation.