Where can I find AWS RDS snapshot hostname?

Question

I have a MySQL instance running on RDS and I have created a snapshot and I read I can connect to snapshot. But I can't find snapshot specific hostname there on RDS management console. Can I really connect to AWS RDS snapshot using mysql client like I connect to instances?

Answer 1

There was an implication in the linked answer that you would need to restore the snapshot to an RDS instance. A snapshot isn't a live MySQL database -- you can't connect to it and use that state until you restore a new RDS instance from that snapshot. Here's how snapshots are defined in the documentation, if it helps:

DB snapshots are user-initiated and enable you to back up your DB instance in a known state as frequently as you wish, and then restore to that specific state at any time. DB snapshots can be created with the Amazon RDS console or the CreateDBSnapshot action in the Amazon RDS API. DB snapshots are kept until you explicitly delete them with the Amazon RDS console or the DeleteDBSnapshot action in the Amazon RDS API.

You can restore from a snapshot from the AWS console, or programmatically through the:

• CLI: restore-db-instance-from-db-snapshot
• API: RestoreDBInstanceFromDBSnapshot