A Multi-AZ standby and a read replica copy every change within seconds, mistakes included. Getting yesterday's data back is a job for backups.

Two kinds of backup

Automated backups keep every change for the retention period (1 day by default, up to 35). Turn it up, and protect the instance from a careless delete:

aws rds modify-db-instance --db-instance-identifier market-db --backup-retention-period 7 --deletion-protection --apply-immediately

A manual snapshot is the database at one moment, kept until you delete it: take one before anything risky.

aws rds create-db-snapshot --db-snapshot-identifier market-db-before-sale --db-instance-identifier market-db

aws rds describe-db-snapshots --db-instance-identifier market-db --query "DBSnapshots[].[DBSnapshotIdentifier,SnapshotType,Status]" --output table

Restoring

A point-in-time restore rebuilds the database as it was at any second of the retention period, up to about five minutes ago (aws rds describe-db-instances --db-instance-identifier market-db --query "DBInstances[0].LatestRestorableTime" --output text). Note the time before a risky change: date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ.

aws rds restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time --source-db-instance-identifier market-db --target-db-instance-identifier market-db-restored --restore-time 2026-10-20T09:15:00Z --db-subnet-group-name market-db-subnets --vpc-security-group-ids $DB_SG

From a snapshot: aws rds restore-db-instance-from-db-snapshot --db-instance-identifier market-db-copy --db-snapshot-identifier market-db-before-sale --db-subnet-group-name market-db-subnets --vpc-security-group-ids $DB_SG.

Every restore is a new instance with a new endpoint, and the VPC's default security group unless you name one. Point the app at it:

aws ssm put-parameter --name /market/db/endpoint --type String --value $EP --overwrite

An instance you no longer need: aws rds delete-db-instance --db-instance-identifier market-db-copy --skip-final-snapshot (or --final-db-snapshot-identifier to keep one last snapshot). A snapshot taken at the wrong moment: aws rds delete-db-snapshot --db-snapshot-identifier market-db-before-sale.