Upgrade Amazon Redshift DC2 clusters to the new Amazon Redshift RG

This article provides a comprehensive guide for upgrading Amazon Redshift DC2 clusters to the new RG instances powered by AWS Graviton processors.

• RG instances offer managed storage, data sharing, zero-ETL integrations, and streaming ingestion unavailable on DC2
• Integrated data lake engine queries Apache Iceberg and Parquet directly on cluster nodes without per-TB Spectrum costs
• RG delivers higher throughput and lower cost per vCPU compared to RA3 with same managed storage architecture
• Three upgrade methods available: elastic resize (fastest), classic resize (with data rebalancing), and snapshot-restore with identifier swap
• Node mapping guidance provided for sizing RG clusters based on current DC2 configuration
• Redshift Test Drive utility enables production workload validation before migration
• Best practices include running Advisor pre-migration, coordinating write-freeze windows, and monitoring 48-72 hours post-migration

RG instances provide a cost-effective upgrade path with access to modern Redshift capabilities, improved query performance, and simplified data lake access for DC2 customers.