Change from pay-as-you-go to serverless

Use cases

If your business has significantly fluctuating workloads or requires a large storage capacity, consider using a serverless instance. A serverless instance automatically scales computing resources based on your workload. This improves resource utilization, increases operational efficiency, and helps reduce costs.

For more information about the use cases of serverless instances, see ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL serverless instances.

Prerequisites

The instance must meet the following requirements:

• Engine: MySQL

• Edition: RDS Basic Edition or RDS High-availability Edition

• Product type: Standard Edition

• Storage type: PL1 ESSD or premium performance disk

• The engine version must be one of the following versions or later, and must not be a phased-out version:

  • MySQL 5.7: rds_20230228

  • MySQL 8.0: rds_20230324

• Billing method: pay-as-you-go

  Note

  If your instance uses the subscription billing method, you must first change it to pay-as-you-go.

• Status: Running

• The instance is a primary instance and has no read-only instances.

• X-Engine is not enabled.

• The database proxy is not enabled.

• SSL encryption is not enabled.

• The instance does not use a custom master key for cloud disk encryption.

Limitations

• You can convert an instance between pay-as-you-go and serverless only once every 24 hours.

• The conversion fails if serverless instances are unavailable in the instance's availability zone or if resources are insufficient.

Impacts

• Converting a pay-as-you-go instance to serverless causes an instance switchover. You must configure an automatic reconnection mechanism in your application. For more information about the impacts of an instance switchover, see Impacts of an instance switchover.

• If Performance Schema (PFS) is enabled on the instance, converting the instance to serverless may cause high memory usage and reduce the scaling efficiency of RDS Capacity Units (RCUs).

Usage notes

• A serverless instance automatically scales up or down and adjusts the InnoDB buffer pool size based on the workload. Therefore, custom modifications to the innodb_buffer_pool_size and innodb_buffer_pool_instances parameters are ignored after the conversion.

• We recommend that you set the maximum number of RCUs to a value greater than or equal to the number of vCores in the original instance type. For example, if the original instance has 4 vCores, set the maximum number of RCUs to 4 or higher.

Billing

The conversion from pay-as-you-go to serverless is free of charge. For more information about the billing of serverless instances, see Serverless billing.

Procedure

1. Go to the Instances page. In the top navigation bar, select the instance's region, and then click the instance ID.

2. On the Basic Information page, in the Configuration Information section, click Change to Serverless.

3. On the buy page, configure RDS Capacity Units (RCUs). In the Advanced Settings section, configure Scaling Policy and Automatic Stop and Restart. Then, set the Switching Time.

   Note

   For more information about these parameters, see Configure a serverless instance.

4. Read the Note and Terms of Service, and then click Confirm Order.

   Note

   During the conversion, the instance status changes to Upgrading/Downgrading. After the conversion is complete, the status changes back to Running.

FAQ

• Q: After I convert my instance to serverless, why does a new purchase order appear in Expenses And Costs > Orders?

  A: The conversion works by creating a new serverless instance and then switching from the original instance to the new one. This process generates a new purchase order.

• Q: Why can't I convert an instance that uses a custom master key for cloud disk encryption to serverless?

  A: Serverless instances use general-purpose instance types, which support cloud disk encryption only with a service key (Default Service CMK).

• Q: Is Sequence Engine supported after the conversion to serverless?

  A: Yes. For more information, see Sequence Engine.

API reference