What is Amazon Relational Database Service?

Amazon Relational Database Service, or RDS, is a web service that runs in the AWS cloud that simplifies the experience of creating, managing and scaling relational databases that are used as part of architecture for applications. Relational databases are core to how information if stored, organized, and retrieved for nearly all applications that you might encounter on daily basis - think social media, streaming services, or your favorite recipe app. Whenever an application uses information that is formatted in a tabular structure (like an excel spreadsheet), there is likely a relational database being used to provide that storage.

My role

As a UX designer for RDS, my focus is on design for the console (the web interface). Due to non-disclosure agreements, I’m not able to publish my detailed designs or artifacts here. However, if you are interested, please reach out as I’m happy to discuss my work at a general level that maintains confidentiality.

Launched projects

Below I’ve included a list of select projects that have launched or been publicly announced. Unless otherwise noted, I was the sole UX designer on each project.

  1. 1-click RDS to EC2 Connection Set Up: Provides RDS customers the option to automatically set up an EC2 connection when provisioning a database. Announcement

  2. Multi-AZ Database Cluster: A new deployment option that allows RDS customers to leverage the advantages of a standby and read replica simultaneously. Announcement

  3. Aurora Serverless v2: Amazon Aurora Serverless v2 scales instantly from hundreds to hundreds-of-thousands of transactions in a fraction of a second. Announcement

  4. Graviton2 Instances: Graviton2 instances provide up to 20% performance improvement and up to 35% price/performance improvement for Aurora depending on database size. Announcement

  5. PostgreSQL Support for Boolean DB Parameter Expressions: Boolean DB parameter expressions in PostgreSQL parameter groups enable database administrators to optimize more database configurations with fewer parameter groups by allowing expressions rather than only values. Announcement

  6. Oracle Replica in Mounted Mode: Provided customers an additional option when creating a replica of their database. The primary use for mounted replicas is cross-Region disaster recovery. Feature description