ElastiCache is a cloud Redis service by Amazon Web Services. It’s a fully-managed cloud Redis service, much like other cloud databases AWS offers, which means scaling your Redis instances is a breeze. Big names like Adobe and Airbnb use ElastiCache.

If you want to use ElastiCache Redis with RDBTools, you have to run RDBTools on an EC2 instance that has access to the ElastiCache Redis cluster. This is because ElastiCache only allows connections from within AWS’s own network, i.e, you can only access your ElastiCache Redis instance from within an EC2 instance, not from a server running outside AWS’s network.

The following 2 features improve the workflow with ElastiCache:

CloudFormation Launch Template

Auto-discovery of ElastiCache instances

CloudFormation Launch Template

Getting RDBTools running on an EC2 instance used to be a multi-step process. You would have to launch an EC2 instance, install docker, get an RDBTools docker container running, configure your security groups to allow access, etc.

Using our CloudFormation template, you can avoid all that hassle and with just a couple of clicks, you can get RDBTools up and running on a new EC2 instance.

See our CloudFormation documentation to learn more.

Auto-discovery of ElastiCache instances

RDBTools can now automatically discover your ElastiCache instances if it’s running on an EC2 instance. A new button will show up that says Sync with AWS ElastiCache, right next to the Add an Instance button.

Clicking this button will take you to a screen that lists all your ElastiCache instances. Here, you can select which instances you’d like to add and add a password if your instance is password-protected.

After you’ve selected your instances and it’s connected successfully, just click Add Selected Instances to add all of them together.

Together, our CloudFormation template and ElastiCache instance auto-discovery make using RDBTools with ElastiCache super easy, even easier than working with local instances. Visit our CF launch page to try it yourself!