Expiration and renewal of an ApsaraDB RDS instance - ApsaraDB RDS

When your subscription ApsaraDB RDS instance expires, you may no longer be able to access the instance. If you want to continue using your instance, you must renew its subscription. Otherwise, instance resources such as CPU cores, memory, and disks are released, and your data will be permanently deleted. Pay-as-you-go instances do not expire and thus do not require renewal.

Warning

Alibaba Cloud sends notifications to you before your subscription expires. To avoid business interruptions, we recommend that you renew your subscription at your earliest opportunity.

Renewal methods

You can manually renew or enable auto-renewal for your RDS instance. The cost of renewing a subscription is the same as purchasing a new subscription.

Note

The price of an instance varies based on its configurations, such as the region, instance type, and storage capacity. For more information, visit the ApsaraDB RDS buy page.

Enable auto-renewal for an RDS instance

You can enable the auto-renewal feature to prevent business interruptions caused by instance expiration. For more information, see Use the auto-renewal feature.

If you enable auto-renewal for your RDS instance, the system deducts the renewal fee at 08:00 on two days before the RDS instance expires. If this fails, the system attempts to deduct the renewal fee once every day for the remaining subscription duration until the deduction succeeds. Make sure you have sufficient balance in your Alibaba Cloud account to ensure that auto-renewal is successful.

For example, auto-renewal is enabled for an RDS subscription that expires on January 9, 2023.

The system attempts to deduct the renewal fee at 08:00 beginning on January 07, 2023 until January 09, 2023. If any of the deductions is successful, the auto-renewal process is complete.
First attempt: January 07, 2023, 08:00. If the deduction succeeds, the auto-renewal process is complete. Otherwise, the system will attempt again on January 08, 2023.
Second attempt: January 08, 2023, 08:00. If the deduction succeeds, the auto-renewal process is complete. Otherwise, the system will attempt again on January 09, 2023.
Last attempt: January 09, 2023, 08:00. If the deduction succeeds, the auto-renewal process is complete and the instance expires at 24:00 the same day. For more information about post-expiration instance states, see Post-expiration instance states.

Important

We recommend that you follow up on the progress of the deduction and manually renew your RDS instance at your earliest opportunity if the deduction fails.

Manually renew an RDS subscription

When an RDS subscription expires, Alibaba Cloud retains your instance for a few days before it is released. You can manually renew your subscription within this period. After this period, the instance is released, and the data stored on it is permanently deleted. For more information, see Manually renew an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.

Post-expiration instance states

Post-expiration state

Operation

Day 1 to 7: The instance is locked and cannot be accessed.
Day 8 to 15: The computing resources of the instance are released. However, the data backups of the instance are retained.
Day 16: The data backups of the instance are deleted.

If your RDS instance is locked, manually renew the RDS instance. The instance is immediately restored. For more information, see Manually renew an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.
A subscription RDS instance is automatically moved to the recycle bin on the eighth day after it expires. In this case, you can renew the RDS instance to unlock it within seven days. If you do not renew the RDS instance within this period, the instance is released. After the RDS instance is released, the data backup files of the RDS instance can still be retained for a specific period of time. You can restore the data of the RDS instance from the data backup files to a new RDS instance from the recycle bin.
Note
For more information about the recycle bin feature, see Manage ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instances in the recycle bin, Manage ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instances in the recycle bin, Manage ApsaraDB RDS for SQL Server instances in the recycle bin, and Manage ApsaraDB RDS for MariaDB instances in the recycle bin.

Important

Data that has been deleted cannot be restored.

After an instance is released, the following backups of the instance are retained:

Cross-region backups of RDS for MySQL instance, cross-region backups of RDS for SQL Server instance, and cross-region backups of RDS for PostgreSQL instances within their retention periods.
The backups that are retained based on the backup retention settings after an RDS for MySQL instance is released. For more information, see Configure automatic backup.
The latest backup that is retained by default for RDS for MySQL instances that use cloud disks and are purchased on Feburary 1, 2024 and later. For more information, see Use the backup for deleted instances feature.