Amazon Neptune Serverless - Amazon Neptune
Serverless use casesConstraints

Amazon Neptune Serverless

Amazon Neptune Serverless is an on-demand autoscaling configuration that is architected to scale your DB cluster as needed to meet even very large increases in processing demand, and then scale down again when the demand decreases. It helps to automate the processes of monitoring workload and adjusting capacity for your Neptune database. Because capacity is adjusted automatically based on application demand, you're charged only for the resources that your application actually needs.

Use cases for Neptune Serverless

Neptune Serverless supports many types of workloads. It is suitable for demanding, highly variable workloads and can be very helpful if your database usage is typically heavy for short periods of time, followed by long periods of light activity or no activity at all. Neptune Serverless is especially useful for the following use cases:

  • Variable workloads   –   Workloads that have sudden and unpredictable increases in CPU activity. With Neptune Serverless, your graph database automatically scales capacity to meet the needs of the workload and scales back down when the surge of activity is over. You no longer have to provision for peak or average capacity. You can specify an upper capacity limit to handle peak workloads, and that capacity isn't used unless it's needed.

    The granularity of scaling provided by Neptune Serverless helps you match capacity closely to your workload's needs. Neptune Serverless can add or remove capacity in fine grained increments based on what is needed. It can add as little as half a Neptune Capacity Unit (NCU) when only a little more capacity is required.

  • Multi-tenant applications   –   By taking advantage of Neptune Serverless, you can create a separate DB cluster for each of the applications you need to run without having to manage those tenant clusters individually. Each of the tenant clusters may have different busy and idle periods depending on multiple factors, but Neptune Serverless can scale them efficiently without your intervention.

  • New applications   –   When you deploy a new application, you're often unsure how much database capacity it will need. Using Neptune Serverless, you can set up a DB cluster that can scale automatically to meet the new application's capacity requirements as they develop.

  • Capacity planning   –   Suppose you usually adjust your database capacity, or verify the optimal database capacity for your workload, by modifying the DB instance classes of all the DB instances in a cluster. With Neptune Serverless, you can avoid this administrative overhead. Instead, you can modify existing DB instances from provisioned to serverless or from serverless to provisioned without having to create a new DB cluster or instance.

  • Development and testing   –   Neptune Serverless is also perfect for development and testing environments. With Neptune Serverless you can create DB instances with a high enough maximum capacity to test your most demanding application, and a low minimum capacity for all the other times when the system may be idle between tests.

Neptune Serverless only scales compute capacity. Your storage volume remains the same, and is not affected by serverless scaling.

Note

You can also use Neptune auto-scaling with Neptune Serverless to handle different kinds of workload variations.

Amazon Neptune Serverless constraints

  • Not available in all regions   –   Neptune Serverless is only available in the following regions:

    • US East (N. Virginia):   us-east-1

    • US East (Ohio):   us-east-2

    • US West (N. California):   us-west-1

    • US West (Oregon):   us-west-2

    • Canada (Central):   ca-central-1

    • Europe (Stockholm):   eu-north-1

    • Europe (Ireland):   eu-west-1

    • Europe (London):   eu-west-2

    • Europe (Frankfurt):   eu-central-1

    • Asia Pacific (Tokyo):   ap-northeast-1

    • Asia Pacific (Singapore):   ap-southeast-1

    • Asia Pacific (Sydney):   ap-southeast-2

  • Not available in early engine versions   –   Neptune Serverless is only available in engine releases 1.2.0.1 or later.

  • Not compatible with the Neptune lookup cache   –   The lookup cache does not work with serverless DB instances.

  • Maximum memory in a serverless instance is 256 GB   –   Setting MaxCapacity to 128 NCUs (the highest supported setting) allows a Neptune Serverless instance to scale to 256 GB of memory, which is equivalent to that of an R6g.8XL provisioned instance type.