Do you need a MySQL server to use RDS?

Question

New newbie question:

I have a standard LAMP stack that I have configured to use with Amazon RDS MySQL. http://aws.amazon.com/rds/mysql/

It occurred to me that RDS itself uses MySQL, therefore do I need MySQL running on my webserver? Will I see a significant performance increase if I delete/disable it?

Thanks

Answer 1

RDS is, in effect, a MySQL server operated for you by Amazon. If you are using RDS for your databases, you don't need your own MySQL server. (You will still need MySQL modules loaded into PHP et. al. to access RDS, though.)