Tagging Amazon Aurora Global Database resources

With the Aurora Global Database feature, you can apply RDS tags to resources at different levels within a global database. If you aren't familiar with how tags are used with AWS or Aurora resources, see Tagging Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS resources before applying tags within your global database.

Note

Because AWS processes tag data as part of its cost-reporting mechanisms, don't include any sensitive data or personally identifiable information (PII) in the tag names or values.

You can apply tags to the following kinds of resources within a global database:

• The container object for your entire global database. This resource is known as the global cluster.

  After you create the global cluster by performing an Add AWS Region operation in the console, you can add tags by using the details page for the global cluster. On the Tags tab within the global cluster details page, you can add, remove, or modify tags and their associated values by choosing Manage tags.

  With the AWS CLI and RDS API, you can add tags to the global cluster at the same time you create it. You can also add, remove, or modify tags for an existing global cluster.

• The primary cluster. You use the same procedures for working with tags here as for standalone Aurora clusters. You can set up the tags before turning the original Aurora cluster into a global database. You can also add, remove, or modify tags and their associated values by choosing Manage tags on the Tags tab within the DB cluster details page.

• Any secondary clusters. You use the same procedures for working with tags here as for standalone Aurora clusters. You can set up the tags at the same time as you create a secondary Aurora cluster by using the Add AWS Region action in the console. You can also add, remove, or modify tags and their associated values by choosing Manage tags on the Tags tab within the DB cluster details page.

• Individual DB instances within the primary or secondary clusters. You use the same procedures for working with tags here as for Aurora or RDS DB instances. You can set up the tags at the same time as you add a new DB instance to the Aurora cluster by using the Add reader action in the console. You can also add, remove, or modify tags and their associated values by choosing Manage tags on the Tags tab within the DB instance details page.

Here are some examples of the kinds of tags you might assign within a global database:

• You might add tags to the global cluster to record overall information about your application, such as anonymized identifiers representing owners and contacts within your organization. You might use tags to represent properties of the application that uses the global database.

• You might add tags to the primary cluster and secondary clusters to track costs for your application at the AWS Region level. For details about that procedure, see How AWS billing works with tags in Amazon RDS.

• You might add tags to specific DB instances with the Aurora clusters to indicate their special purpose. For example, within the primary cluster, you might have a reader instance with a low failover priority that is used exclusively for report generation. A tag can distinguish this special-purpose DB instance from other instances that are dedicated to high availability within the primary cluster.

• You might use tags at all levels of your global database resources to control access through IAM policies. For more information, see Controlling access to AWS resources in the AWS Identity and Access Management User Guide.

  Tip

  In the AWS Management Console, you add tags to the global cluster container as a separate step after you create it. If you want to avoid any time interval when the global cluster exists without access control tags, you can apply the tags during the CreateGlobalCluster operation by creating that resource through AWS CLI, RDS API, or a AWS CloudFormation template.

• You might use tags at the cluster level, or for the global cluster, to record information about quality assurance and testing of your application. For example, you might specify a tag on a DB cluster to record the last time you performed a switchover to that cluster. You might specify a tag on the global cluster to record the time of the last disaster recovery drill for the entire application.

AWS CLI examples of tagging for global databases

The following AWS CLI examples show how you can specify and examine tags for all the types of Aurora resources in your global database.

You can specify tags for the global cluster container with the create-global-cluster command. The following example creates a global cluster and assigns two tags to it. The tags have keys tag1 and tag2.

$  aws rds create-global-cluster --global-cluster-identifier my_global_cluster_id \
  --engine aurora-mysql --tags Key=tag1,Value=val1 Key=tag2,Value=val2

You can list the tags on the global cluster container with the describe-global-clusters command. When working with tags, you typically run this command first to retrieve the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the global cluster. You use the ARN as a parameter in subsequent commands for working with tags. The following command displays the tag information in the TagList attribute. It also shows the ARN, which is used as a parameter in the later examples.

$  aws rds describe-global-clusters --global-cluster-identifier my_global_cluster_id
{
    "GlobalClusters": [
        {
            "Status": "available",
            "Engine": "aurora-mysql",
            "GlobalClusterArn": "my_global_cluster_arn",
            ...
            "TagList": [
                {
                    "Value": "val1",
                    "Key": "tag1"
                },
                {
                    "Value": "val2",
                    "Key": "tag2"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

You can add new tags with the add-tags-to-resource command. With this command, you specify the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the global cluster instead of its identifier. Adding a tag with the same name as an existing tag overwrites the value of that tag. If you include spaces or special characters in the tag values, quote the values as appropriate for your operating system or command shell. The following example modifies the tags of the global cluster from the previous example. Originally, the cluster had tags with keys tag1 and tag2. After the command finishes, the global cluster has a new tag with key tag3, and the tag with key tag1 has a different value.

$  aws rds add-tags-to-resource --resource-name my_global_cluster_arn \
  --tags Key=tag1,Value="new value for tag1" Key=tag3,Value="entirely new tag"

$  aws rds describe-global-clusters --global-cluster-identifier my_global_cluster_id
{
    "GlobalClusters": [
        {
            "Status": "available",
            "Engine": "aurora-mysql",
            ...
            "TagList": [
                {
                    "Value": "new value for tag1",
                    "Key": "tag1"
                },
                {
                    "Value": "val2",
                    "Key": "tag2"
                },
                {
                    "Value": "entirely new tag",
                    "Key": "tag3"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

You can delete a tag from the global cluster with the remove-tags-from-resource command. With this command, you specify only a set of tag keys, without any tag values. The following example modifies the tags of the global cluster from the previous example. Originally, the cluster had tags with keys tag1, tag2, and tag3. After the command finishes, only the tag with key tag1 remains.

$  aws rds remove-tags-from-resource --resource-name my_global_cluster_arn --tag-keys tag2 tag3

$  aws rds describe-global-clusters --global-cluster-identifier my_global_cluster_id
{
    "GlobalClusters": [
        {
            "Status": "available",
            "Engine": "aurora-mysql",
            ...
            "TagList": [
                {
                    "Value": "new value for tag1",
                    "Key": "tag1"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}