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Amazon Neptune Global Cluster execution block - Amazon Application Recovery Controller (ARC)
ConfigurationHow it works

Amazon Neptune Global Cluster execution block

The Amazon Neptune Global Database execution block allows you to perform a failover or switchover recovery workflow for a Neptune global database.

  • Switchover – This operation was previously called managed planned failover. Use this approach for controlled scenarios, such as operational maintenance and other planned operational procedures where all the Amazon Neptune clusters and other services they interact with are in a healthy state. Because this feature synchronizes secondary DB clusters with the primary before making any other changes, RPO is 0 (no data loss).

  • Failover – Use this approach to recover from an unplanned outage. With this approach, you perform a cross-Region failover to one of the secondary DB clusters in your Amazon Neptune global database. The recovery point objective (RPO) for this approach is typically a non-zero value measured in seconds. The amount of data loss depends on the Amazon Neptune global database replication lag across the AWS Regions at the time of the failure.

Configuration

To configure a Amazon Neptune Global Database execution block, enter the following values.

Important

Before you configure the execution block, make sure that the plan's execution role has the correct IAM policy in place. For more information, see Amazon Neptune Global Cluster execution block sample policy.

  1. Step name: Enter a name.

  2. Step description (optional): Enter a description of the step.

  3. Neptune Global Database cluster name: Enter the identifier for the global database.

  4. Cluster ARN for Region: Enter the cluster ARN to use in each Region in the plan.

  5. Specify the option for Neptune database: Choose either Switchover or Failover (data loss), depending on your recovery requirements. Choose switchover for planned operations with zero data loss, or failover for unplanned outage recovery where some data loss is acceptable.

  6. Timeout: Enter a timeout value.

Then, choose Save step.

How it works

By configuring a Amazon Neptune Global Database execution block, you can failover or switchover global databases as part of your application recovery.

This block supports both graceful and ungraceful execution modes:

  • Graceful – Region switch performs the operation that you specified in the configuration (switchover or failover). If you configured switchover, Region switch calls SwitchoverGlobalCluster, which synchronizes all secondary clusters with the primary before promoting the target cluster (zero data loss). If you configured failover, Region switch calls FailoverGlobalCluster, which immediately promotes the target cluster without waiting for replication to complete (potential data loss).

  • Ungraceful – If you have configured ungraceful settings, Region switch calls FailoverGlobalCluster with AllowDataLoss=true on the target secondary cluster. Amazon Neptune immediately promotes the target cluster to be the new primary without waiting for replication to complete. This may result in data loss equal to the replication lag at the time of failover.

If an ungraceful execution is requested while a switchover is already in progress, Region switch first reverses the in-progress switchover (by switching back to the original primary), waits for the cluster to become available, and then performs the failover to the target cluster.

In both modes, Region switch polls the global cluster status until the target cluster becomes the writer and the cluster returns to an available state, or until the configured timeout is reached.

If the target cluster is already the writer when the block executes, Region switch detects this and completes the step immediately without making any changes.

For more information about Amazon Neptune Global Database disaster recovery, see Using switchover or failover in Amazon Neptune global databases in the Amazon Neptune User Guide.