AWS re:Invent 2025 - [NEW LAUNCH] Deep dive into AWS Database Savings Plans (DAT326)

AWS re:Invent 2025 - Deep Dive into AWS Database Savings Plans

Overview of Database Savings Plans

• AWS announced the new Database Savings Plans at re:Invent 2025, a highly requested feature for customers
• Database Savings Plans provide flexibility and portability to move between database services, instance types, and deployment models (serverless vs. provisioned)
• Compared to Reserved Instances, Database Savings Plans offer a 1-year commitment (vs. 3-year) with no upfront payment

Coverage and Discounts

• Database Savings Plans cover a wide range of AWS database services, including:
  • Amazon Aurora (up to 35% discount for serverless)
  • Amazon RDS (up to 20% discount for provisioned)
  • Amazon DynamoDB (up to 18% discount for on-demand throughput)
  • And others like Amazon Redshift, Amazon DocumentDB, etc.
• The discounts apply to both Intel and Graviton-based instances across generations 7 and 8

Flexibility and Portability

• Database Savings Plans allow customers to easily move usage between database services, instance types, and deployment models (serverless vs. provisioned)
• This flexibility enables customers to adapt to changing requirements, adopt new technologies, and optimize their database architectures without managing multiple commitments

Comparison to Reserved Instances

• Reserved Instances require specific reservations for an instance type in a region, locking in a 3-year commitment
• Database Savings Plans provide more flexibility to change instance types, regions, and database services while still receiving discounts
• Customers should use Database Savings Plans when they want the ability to move between services and instance types, and Reserved Instances for stable, predictable workloads

Purchasing and Recommendations

• AWS provides two main tools for purchasing Database Savings Plans:
  1. Recommendations - Analyzes historical usage to provide an optimal purchase amount to maximize savings
  2. Savings Plan Purchase Analyzer - Allows more advanced analysis and testing of different purchase amounts
• The recommendations use a "golden section search" algorithm to find the purchase size that yields the highest dollar savings
• Customers can also purchase incrementally, starting with a smaller amount and adding more over time as usage grows

Applying Savings Plans to Usage

• Savings Plans apply the highest discounts first, starting with the 35% discount for Aurora Serverless
• This means smaller Savings Plan purchases can still yield significant savings by consuming the highest discounts first
• Customers can also "layer" or "stagger" Savings Plan purchases over time as Reserved Instances expire

Migrating from Reserved Instances to Savings Plans

• Customers can track their Reserved Instance expiration dates and migrate that usage to Database Savings Plans
• A recommended strategy is to target ~80% coverage with Savings Plans, leaving some on-demand capacity for future optimizations or changes
• This allows customers to benefit from Savings Plan discounts while maintaining flexibility for their evolving database architectures

Key Takeaways

• Database Savings Plans provide unprecedented flexibility and portability for database workloads on AWS
• Significant discounts are available, up to 35% for serverless database services like Aurora
• Purchasing recommendations and analysis tools make it easy to optimize Savings Plan coverage and utilization
• Customers can migrate from Reserved Instances to Savings Plans incrementally to maintain flexibility and maximize savings