Amazon RDS for MySQL now supports global transaction identifiers (GTIDs)

Posted on: Oct 10, 2018

Amazon RDS for MySQL now supports global transaction identifiers (GTIDs), which uniquely identify each transaction on the server and within a replication setup.

Traditional MySQL replication is based on relative coordinates, with each replica keeping track of its position with respect to its current master's binary log files. This file-offset pair is used to determine points for starting, stopping, or resuming the flow of data between master and replica.

GTID is based on absolute coordinates, with each transaction having a unique identifier and each MySQL server keeping track of which transactions it has already executed. The absolute coordinates of a GTID permit "auto-positioning," the ability for a replica to be pointed at a master instance without needing to specify a binlog filename or position in the CHANGE MASTER statement. Customers can take advantage of GTIDs’ auto-positioning for simpler and less error-prone failover to replicas, hierarchical replication, point-in-time backup recovery, and crash-safe multi-threaded replication.

Learn more about GTID and how you can take advantage of it from the Amazon RDS User Guide. Launch a new Amazon RDS for MySQL database instance or upgrade your current instance with just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console.