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    ApsaraDB RDS:Create an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance

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    ApsaraDB RDS:Create an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance

    Last Updated:Jun 08, 2026

    Create an RDS MySQL instance from the ApsaraDB RDS console or the CreateDBInstance API.

    Prerequisites

    A RAM user must have the AliyunRDSFullAccess and AliyunBSSOrderAccess permissions. Grant permissions to a RAM user.

    Procedure

    1. Go to the ApsaraDB RDS instance creation page.

    2. Select a Billing Method.

      Billing method

      Recommendation

      Benefits

      Subscription

      For long-term use, select Subscription and specify a Duration.

      Subscription is more cost-effective than pay-as-you-go. Longer durations yield higher discounts.

      Pay-As-You-Go

      For short-term use, select Pay-As-You-Go. Billed hourly.

      Start with pay-as-you-go and convert to subscription later.

      Release the instance at any time to stop billing.

      Serverless

      Select Serverless for scheduled tasks, variable workloads, or fully managed operation with no overhead.

      Important

      Create a serverless instance: ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL Serverless instances.

      Scales resources dynamically to match demand, reducing costs versus fixed provisioning.
      Note

      The price appears in the lower-right corner after you complete the configuration.

    3. Select the Region for your ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.

      Deploy the RDS instance in the same region as your ECS instance. Cross-region connections use the public internet and increase latency.

      Note

      • The region cannot be changed after creation. Internal network access requires both instances in the same region.

      • Find your ECS instance region in Preparations.

      • To connect from an external device such as an on-premises server, select a nearby region for lower latency and connect through the public endpoint.

    4. Select the Database Engine, Edition, Product Type, and Storage Type.

      1. Select a database Database Engine.

        This example uses MySQL. Select MySQL. Choose a recent major version (8.0 or 8.4) or match your on-premises database version. Default: 8.0.

        Note

        MySQL version lifecycle: Major version lifecycle.

      2. Select an Edition.

        Edition

        Description

        Features

        Basic Edition

        Single node.

        Cost-effective. Suitable for learning or testing.

        Recovery from failures or restarts can be slow.

        High-availability Edition

        One primary node and one secondary node. Supports adding read-only nodes.

        High availability. Suitable for production environments and more than 80% of use cases.

        Cluster Edition (Recommended)

        One primary node and multiple secondary nodes.

        Provides high availability with a multi-node deployment. Secondary nodes are readable.
        Note

        • The available editions depend on the selected region and database engine.

        • Cluster Edition is available only for MySQL 8.4, 8.0, and 5.7.

      3. Select a Product Type.

        Select Standard Edition or Yitian Edition (available in specific regions). series.

        Note

        • Yitian Edition is available only for MySQL 8.4, 8.0, and 5.7.

        • You do not need to configure this parameter for Basic Edition instances.

      4. Select a Storage Type.

        Item

        local SSD (Recommended)

        High-performance cloud disk

        ESSD

        Scalability

        ★★★★

        • Up to 16,000 GB.

        • Storage expansion may cause brief connection interruptions unless sufficient local resources are available.

        • Storage expansion may take several hours.

        • Auto-scaling is not supported.

        ★★★★★

        • Up to 64,000 GB.

        • No transient connection interruptions during storage expansion.

        • Online scaling is completed in seconds.

        • Auto-scaling is supported.

        ★★★★★

        • Up to 64,000 GB.

        • No transient connection interruptions during storage expansion.

        • Online scaling is completed in seconds.

        • Auto-scaling is supported.

        Performance

        ★★★★★★

        Local storage and I/O with microsecond-level latency.

        ★★★★★

        In addition to being compatible with all features of ESSDs, high-performance cloud disks also provide burstable I/O performance, Buffer Pool Extension (BPE), and data archiving.

        What is a high-performance cloud disk?.

        ★★★★

        • PL1 < PL2 < PL3

        • PL2 delivers up to two times higher IOPS and throughput than PL1.

        • PL3 delivers up to 20 times higher IOPS and 11 times higher throughput than PL1.

        Backup

        ★★★★

        • Backup takes a long time.

        • Backups can be performed up to once per day.

        ★★★★★

        • Backups complete in minutes or seconds.

        • Backups can be performed as frequently as every 15 minutes.

        ★★★★★

        • Backups complete in minutes or seconds.

        • Backups can be performed as frequently as every 15 minutes.
        Note

        • Basic Edition instances of MySQL 8.4, 8.0, and 5.7 support only cloud disks. High-availability Edition instances of MySQL 5.6 and 5.5 support only local SSDs.

        • Feature differences between cloud disks and local SSDs: MySQL feature overview.

      5. (Optional) For instances that use cloud disks, you can enable disk encryption.

    5. Configure the instance network. The network type is fixed to VPC.

      1. Select a VPC.

        Note

        Select the same VPC as your ECS instance. Instances in different VPCs cannot communicate over the internal network.

      2. Specify whether to Add to Whitelist the VPC CIDR block to the IP whitelist.

        Note

        If you select No, configure the IP whitelist manually after creation. Configure an IP whitelist.

    6. Select the availability zone, vSwitch, network, and deployment solution for the instance.

      • How to select an availability zone

        An availability zone is an independent physical zone within a region. For example, the China (Hangzhou) region has availability zone H, I, and J.

        • There are no substantial differences between different availability zones in the same region.

        • Connecting an ECS instance to an RDS instance in the same availability zone offers slightly lower latency than connecting to one in a different availability zone within the same region.

      • How to select a vSwitch

        A vSwitch connects cloud resources within a VPC. Specify a vSwitch when creating resources.

        Select an existing vSwitch or click Create vSwitch to create one. Create and manage VSwitches.

      • How to select a deployment solution

        • Multi-zone Deployment (Recommended): The primary and secondary nodes are located in different availability zones within the same region and provide cross-AZ disaster recovery.

          If you select Multi-zone Deployment, you must select the Zone and Network of Primary Node and Zone and Network of Secondary Node for the instance.

        • Single-zone Deployment: The primary and standby nodes are located in the same availability zone.

          If you select Basic Edition for the Instance Family, you can only select Single-zone Deployment.

        Note

        • For instances that have primary and standby nodes, select Multi-zone Deployment to enable cross-availability zone disaster recovery.

        • If you select Cluster Edition, you must also select the number of secondary nodes and the availability zones for the primary and secondary nodes.

    7. Select an instance type.

      1. Select a Category (General-purpose or Dedicated).

        Category

        Description

        Features

        General-purpose

        Dedicated: memory and I/O

        Shared: CPU and storage

        Cost-effective.

        Dedicated

        Dedicated: CPU, memory, storage, and I/O

        Note

        Top-tier type that exclusively occupies all CPU, memory, storage, and I/O of a physical server.

        Better and more stable performance.

        Note

        Basic Edition does not support dedicated instance types.

      2. Select an instance type (vCPUs and memory). Available types: ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance types.

        • Test environments: 1 vCPU or more.

        • Production environments: 4 vCPUs or more is recommended.

        Note

        For Cluster Edition, the console shows per-node pricing. A 3-node cluster (1 primary + 2 secondary) costs 3× the displayed price.

    8. Select a Database Proxy.

      The general-purpose proxy is free and supports read/write splitting, connection persistence, transaction splitting, connection pooling, and SSL encryption. Enable it during purchase or after creation. Recommended specifications.

      Note

      • For High-availability Edition, the proxy is disabled by default. Enable it manually.

      • For Cluster Edition, the general-purpose proxy is enabled by default. You can disable it manually.

      • To change the proxy specifications or type, modify them after instance creation.

    9. Select the storage capacity.

      Storage range depends on the instance type and storage type. Adjust in increments of 5 GB or more.

      Note

      If you selected the High-availability Edition and cloud disks, you can select Automatic Storage Expansion and set its trigger conditions and upper limit. When a trigger condition is met, the system automatically expands the storage by 5 GB or 15% of the current storage space, whichever is greater, to prevent the instance from being locked due to insufficient storage space.

    10. (Optional) For a Subscription instance that uses a local SSD, configure the Backup Retention After Release. Select Latest or All to prevent data loss from a missed renewal. Enable long-term backup retention.

    11. (Optional) If you selected Billing Method as the Subscription , you must also set the Duration.

      Discounts vary based on the purchase duration. You can hover over View Details to the right of Price to view the fee details.

    12. (Optional) Configure more custom parameters. The default values are suitable for most use cases.

      Parameter

      Description

      Port

      Set the instance port. Valid range: 1000–65534.

      Default Storage Engine

      The default value is InnoDB (Open Source and Default), which provides comprehensive features.

      Note

      This parameter is displayed only when you select MySQL 8.0 and High-availability Edition or Basic Edition.

      Parameter template

      Select a high-performance, asynchronous, default, or custom parameter template. Parameters are displayed on the right. Use a parameter template.

      Note

      This parameter is displayed only when you select High-availability Edition or Basic Edition.

      Time Zone

      Set the time zone for the instance.

      Note

      This parameter is displayed only when you select High-availability Edition or Basic Edition.

      Table Name Case Sensitivity

      The default value is Case-insensitive. If your on-premises database is case-sensitive, you can change this to Case-sensitive to facilitate data migration.

      Note

      This parameter is displayed only when you select High-availability Edition or Basic Edition.

      Release Protection

      Prevents accidental release of pay-as-you-go instances. Enable or disable release protection for an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.

      Minor version update policy

      Set the minor engine version update policy:

      • Auto Update (Recommended): Automatically upgrades to the latest minor version within the maintenance window. You can change the upgrade time on the Planned Events page.

      • Manual Upgrade: You can manually upgrade the instance on its Basic Information page.

      Note

      If you do not want to use the latest minor version, you can select Select Minor Version to specify a minor version.

      Resource Group

      Select a resource group for instance management.

      Instance Name

      Enter a description to identify the instance.

      Tags

      Tag instances for categorized management. Filter ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instances by tag.

    13. In the upper-right corner of the page, select the number of instances to purchase.

      Default: 1. Maximum: 20.

    14. Confirm the order information, quantity, and subscription duration (for subscription instances only), click Pay Now, and then complete the payment.

      Note

      • For subscription instances, we recommend that you select Enable Auto-renewal to avoid service disruptions caused by renewal expiration.

      • Auto-renewal cycles match the subscription period (monthly or yearly), subject to the order. Cancel at any time. Manage auto-renewal.

    15. View the instance.

      On the Instance List page, select the target region and locate the instance by Creation time.

      Note

      Instance creation takes 1–10 minutes. Refresh the page to check the status.

    Next steps

    Create a database and an account

    FAQ

    How do I view the total number of RDS instances under my Alibaba Cloud account?

    Log on to the RDS overview page to view all ApsaraDB RDS instances under your account, including total count, regional distribution, and running instances per region.

    image

    Why can't I see the instance that is being created in the instance list?

    Possible cause

    Description

    Suggestion

    Incorrect region

    The current region is different from the region where you created the instance.

    In the upper-left corner of the page, switch to the correct region.

    Insufficient resources in the availability zone

    Instance creation failed due to insufficient resources in the selected availability zone.

    If the creation fails, you can find a refund in the Orders list.

    Select another availability zone and try again.

    A RAM permission policy prohibits the creation of unencrypted RDS instances

    A RAM permission policy is preventing RAM users from creating unencrypted ApsaraDB RDS instances.

    • Instance creation fails because disk encryption cannot be enabled for instances that use local SSDs.

    • If a RAM user tries to create an instance that uses cloud disks but does not enable disk encryption, the instance creation fails.

    Use a RAM policy to control access to ApsaraDB RDS resources.

    When you create an instance, select Cloud Disk for the storage type, enable disk encryption, set a key, and then try again.

    Related documents

    Appendix: Quickly create resources with ROS

    Resource Orchestration Service (ROS) simplifies cloud resource management through infrastructure as code (IaC). Define resources and dependencies in templates, and ROS automatically creates and configures them.

    The following ROS template creates an RDS MySQL instance, database, and account in one step. All resources are managed as a stack.

    1. Open the quick configuration template link to go to the Create Stack page in the ROS console.

      Important

      • Cloud resources created from an ROS template and their dependencies form an ROS stack. Manage them individually in their consoles or as a unit through the stack.

      • Resources created from ROS templates are billable. Delete the stack promptly when no longer needed to avoid charges.

    2. In the top navigation bar, select a region. If you need to connect to an ECS instance over the internal network, we recommend that you select the same region as the ECS instance.

    3. Enter a Stack Name. This topic uses ros_test1 as an example. You can also use the default stack name.image

    4. In the Basic resource settings section, select a vSwitch zone. Different vSwitch availability zones offer different instance types. If you do not have specific availability zone requirements, you can select an availability zone that offers a larger number of instance types in your region.

      Note

      This template automatically deploys a VPC and vSwitch connected to the RDS instance. You only need to select a vSwitch availability zone.

    5. In the RDS settings section, configure the parameters.

      Note

      This template uses the following defaults. Configure the remaining parameters manually:

      • Edition: High-availability Edition

      • DB engine: MySQL

      • Billing method: pay-as-you-go

      • Select an Network Type. Intranet specifies a VPC, and Internet specifies a classic network. If you want to connect to an ECS instance over the internal network, select VPC. This topic uses Intranet as an example.

      • Select a Engine Version. This topic uses 8.0 as an example.

      • Select an Instance Storage Type. local_ssd specifies a local SSD, cloud_ssd specifies an SSD, cloud_essd specifies a PL1 ESSD, cloud_essd2 specifies a PL2 ESSD, and cloud_essd3 specifies a PL3 ESSD. This topic uses cloud_essd as an example.

      • Select the Instance Storage capacity. This topic uses 20 GB as an example. You can adjust the storage capacity in 5 GB increments based on your needs.

      • Select an instance type. If you are trying out the ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL service, you can select the lowest instance configuration available in the current availability zone to reduce costs. If you need to use the service for a long term, select an instance type based on your requirements.

      • Enter a Database Name. This topic uses demodb as an example. You can also specify a different name that meets the requirements on the page.

      • Select an Account Type. Super specifies a privileged account, and Normal specifies a standard account. This topic uses Super as an example.

      • Enter an Account and the username and password.. This topic uses demouser as the account name. You must specify a custom password that meets the requirements.

    6. (Optional) Configure Stack Settings. You can further configure parameters for the ROS stack. If you do not need to configure them, you can skip this step.

      Important

      If you are new to ROS, select Rollback on Failure for Rollback on failure. If creation fails, ROS deletes successfully created resources to prevent unexpected charges.

      image

    7. In the lower-left corner, click Next: Check and confirm to view the Parameters and Price Preview. Before you create the stack, confirm that the stack name is correct, the selected parameters meet your needs, and the price is as expected. If you need to change the configuration, click Previous: Configure parameters in the lower-left corner to return to the parameter settings page.

    8. In the lower-left corner, click Create to create the stack. The creation process takes about 2 to 3 minutes. When the stack Status changes to Create successful, the stack is created and ready to use.image

    9. On the current stack page, click Resources to view the cloud resources and their dependencies in the stack. To view the details of a specific resource, click the Resource ID of the resource. ROS automatically redirects you to the resource's console page.image

    10. (Optional) Delete the stack. To remove the RDS instance and associated resources (VPC, vSwitches), go to the ROS console, click Stack in the left navigation bar, go to Stacks, find the stack, and click Delete. ROS releases all resources in the stack.image