How do I migrate my Amazon Redshift cluster to an RA3 node type?

Short description

You can use RA3 nodes to optimize your data. With RA3, you can scale and pay for compute and managed storage. For more information, see Clusters and nodes in Amazon Redshift.

To migrate your cluster from an existing node type to RA3, use one of the following methods:

• Use elastic resize to change the instance type and update the nodes in your Amazon Redshift cluster. The cluster endpoint doesn't change, and the downtime during resize is minimal.
• If elastic resize is unavailable because of a mismatch between slice and node count, then use the snapshot and restore method. Use this method to minimize the time that it takes to write to your production database.
  Note: You must manually copy data over to the target cluster after the snapshot is taken.
• If elastic resize doesn't support the change in cluster size or node type, then use classic resize. For single node clusters, a classic resize can only convert the cluster into a multi-node cluster.

Note: You can schedule the resize of your Amazon Redshift cluster. Use the create-scheduled-action AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) command or CreateScheduledAction API to automate a cluster resize in Amazon Redshift.

Resolution

Note: If you receive errors when you run AWS CLI commands, then see Troubleshooting errors for the AWS CLI. Also, make sure that you're using the most recent AWS CLI version.

Elastic resize

With elastic resize, you can reduce your cluster by half or double the node count.

To check the available node migration options, choose the Nodes dropdown list in the AWS Management Console. If your current configuration supports elastic resize, then use elastic resize to upgrade your cluster with the RA3 node type. The minimum node count required to perform an elastic resize is two.

Before you perform an elastic resize, use the DescribeNodeConfigurationOptions API or describe-node-configuration-options command to determine the possible node configurations for different node types.

Note: The AWS CLI doesn't offer node configuration options for slice mapping.

To use elastic resize to change your node configuration, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Amazon Redshift console.
2. Choose Clusters.
3. Select your Amazon Redshift cluster.
4. Choose Actions.
5. Choose Resize.
6. Select Elastic Resize as your resize type.
7. Select the node that you want to migrate to for New cluster configuration.
8. Select the number of nodes based on node type.
9. Choose Resize cluster now to start the resize. When the resize starts, the status of your cluster changes from Available to Modifying.
10. After the resize completes, the status returns to Available.

Snapshot and restore

To reuse the endpoint name as a source, you must rename the endpoint after the restore completes.

Use the DescribeNodeConfigurationOptions API or describe-node-configuration-options command with action-type set to restore-cluster to get the possible node configurations for different node types. Then, restore your cluster to the original configuration.

To use the snapshot and restore method to change your cluster configuration, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Amazon Redshift console.
2. Choose Clusters.
3. Choose Snapshots.
4. Select the most recent snapshot of the source cluster.
5. Choose Restore from snapshot.
6. Select the node type.
7. Select the number of nodes.
8. (Optional) Under Additional configuration, modify the database configurations and default configurations such as your virtual private cloud (VPC), parameter group, monitoring, and backup.
9. Choose Restore cluster from snapshot.

To keep the same endpoint as your source cluster, complete the following steps:

Important: Before you begin, create an Amazon Redshift cluster.

1. Delete your old Amazon Redshift cluster.
2. Select the new cluster.
3. Choose Actions.
4. Choose Modify.
5. Select the same Cluster identifier as your deleted cluster.
6. Choose Modify cluster.

Note: You can also use the ModifyCluster API or the modify-cluster command to rename your Amazon Redshift cluster. For more information, see Renaming a cluster.

Classic resize

To use a classic resize to change your node configuration, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Amazon Redshift console.
2. Select the cluster that you want to modify.
3. Choose Actions.
4. Choose Resize.
5. Choose Classic Resize.
6. Under New cluster configuration, select your preferred node type and nodes for migration.
7. Choose either Resize now or Schedule resize.