# Amazon RDS failover for Oracle Data Guard now fully automated with ARC Region switch!

Hey everyone, it's me! Today's update is about database disaster recovery — unglamorous, but seriously important!

## What was announced?

AWS What's New announced a new Amazon RDS Switchover Read Replica execution block for Amazon Application Recovery Controller (ARC) Region switch. ARC Region switch helps you orchestrate failover for multi-Region applications so you can achieve a bounded recovery time when a Region is impaired. This new execution block automates recovery orchestration specifically for Amazon RDS databases running Oracle Data Guard.

## The story so far

Until now, recovering an Amazon RDS database running Oracle Data Guard during a Regional failover meant performing manual steps — reversing the roles of the primary database and its read replica, or promoting a read replica to primary. With more manual steps involved, how fast and accurately you could respond in an emergency came down to the operator's skill.

## What changes

With the RDS Switchover Read Replica execution block, Region switch automates that role transition or promotion for you. The same execution block handles two scenarios: a zero-data-loss role swap between primary and read replica during a planned failover, and promoting the read replica to primary during an unplanned failover where recovery speed matters most. It also has native cross-account support, so you can orchestrate recovery for RDS instances hosted in a different account from your Region switch plan — enabling centralized recovery management across your organization.

## Wrap-up

- ARC Region switch gained a new RDS Switchover Read Replica execution block
- Previously, failover for RDS running Oracle Data Guard required manual steps
- Planned switchovers get zero data loss; unplanned failovers get fast promotion
- Cross-account support lets you centrally manage recovery across your organization

If you run Oracle Data Guard on multi-Region RDS, this should make your disaster recovery operations a lot smoother!