As of April 01, 2021, Alibaba Cloud stopped providing updates and maintenance for the shared proxy feature of ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL. Only technical support remains available for shared proxies. If you still use shared proxy for read/write splitting, upgrade to a dedicated proxy to maintain service stability and service level agreement (SLA) coverage.
Effective date
April 01, 2021
Check if you are affected
Go to the Database Proxy page of your RDS instance. If the Read/Write Splitting (Shared) tab is displayed, the shared proxy feature is enabled on your instance.
Affected instances run one of the following configurations:
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MySQL 5.7 on RDS High-availability Edition with local disks
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MySQL 5.6
Impacts
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Alibaba Cloud no longer provides updates or maintenance for shared proxies. Only technical support remains.
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The stability of shared proxies is no longer covered by the SLA.
What happens if you don't upgrade
If you continue using the shared proxy without upgrading, your database proxy operates outside the SLA. Alibaba Cloud no longer guarantees shared proxy stability, and no updates or fixes are applied to issues that arise.
Why shared proxy was discontinued
A shared proxy serves multiple primary RDS instances that may belong to different users. This architecture creates resource competition and isolation issues that reduce database service stability.
Upgrade to a dedicated proxy
Upgrade your primary RDS instance from a shared proxy to a dedicated proxy. For step-by-step instructions, see Upgrade the database proxy of an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance from a shared proxy to a dedicated proxy.
If you no longer need read/write splitting, disable the shared proxy feature instead.
Billing
The dedicated proxy feature is a paid feature. For pricing details, see Billing rules for the dedicated proxy feature of ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL.
If you upgrade from a shared proxy to a dedicated proxy, you get at least one year of free dedicated proxy use. For details, see Upgrade promotions.
Dedicated proxy vs. shared proxy
The following table compares dedicated proxies and shared proxies.
| Feature | Shared proxy | Dedicated proxy |
|---|---|---|
| Queries per second (QPS) | Up to 1,000 QPS. Cannot scale out. | Up to 20,000 QPS per proxy. Add proxies to scale out, up to 60 proxies per primary RDS instance. |
| Stability | Multiple primary RDS instances from different users share resources and compete for capacity. | Each primary RDS instance has its own dedicated proxy with no resource contention. |
| Availability | Single-node architecture. The proxy disconnects if a failure occurs. | High-availability architecture. |
| Monitoring | Not supported. | CPU utilization monitoring is supported, giving you visibility into proxy resource usage. |
| Read/write splitting | Supported. | Supported. |
| Endpoint behavior | The read/write splitting endpoint is released immediately when you disable the feature. You must update your application to use a new endpoint. | The dedicated proxy endpoint remains valid unless you disable the dedicated proxy. Enabling or disabling read/write splitting does not require changes to your application. |
| Advanced features | None. | Connection pooling, transaction splitting, and SSL encryption. |
Advanced features of dedicated proxy
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Connection pooling: Reduces load caused by excessive connections or frequent short-lived connections, such as PHP-based connections. For details, see Set the connection pool type of an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.
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Transaction splitting: Forwards read requests that occur before write operations within a transaction to read-only instances. This reduces load on the primary RDS instance. For details, see Enable the transaction splitting feature for an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.
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SSL encryption: Encrypts data in transit to the dedicated proxy endpoint. For details, see Configure SSL encryption for a dedicated proxy endpoint on an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.