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Remediation

Address Idle RDS Instances​

Key Considerations​

  • Confirm with application and database owners that the instance is no longer required before stopping, resizing, or deleting it.
  • Review dependencies, connection strings, scheduled jobs, backups, and retention requirements.
  • Stopping an instance retains the underlying data and allows it to be restarted later.
  • Deleting an instance permanently removes it. Create a final snapshot unless an approved retention process already exists.
  • If the instance still supports a low-volume workload, consider rightsizing instead of deleting it.

Stop or Delete the Instance​

From AWS CLI​

Stop the instance:

aws rds stop-db-instance \
    --db-instance-identifier {{db-instance-id}}

Create a manual snapshot before deletion:

aws rds create-db-snapshot \
    --db-snapshot-identifier {{final-snapshot-name}} \
    --db-instance-identifier {{db-instance-id}}

Delete the idle instance after the manual snapshot is available:

aws rds delete-db-instance \
    --db-instance-identifier {{db-instance-id}} \
    --skip-final-snapshot

Right-Size the DB Instance​

From AWS CLI​

To apply during the next maintenance window (recommended for production):

aws rds modify-db-instance \
    --db-instance-identifier {{db-instance-id}} \
    --db-instance-class {{new-instance-class}} \
    --apply-immediately false

To apply immediately (causes a brief outage while resizing):

aws rds modify-db-instance \
    --db-instance-identifier {{db-instance-id}} \
    --db-instance-class {{new-instance-class}} \
    --apply-immediately true