# Overview

Welcome to Relational Database Service API Reference. RDS is an online relational database service based on the cloud computing platform. RDS is reliable, scalable, and easy to manage, and immediately ready for use. RDS provides a comprehensive performance monitoring system, multi-level security protection measures, and a professional database management platform, allowing you to easily set up and scale a relational database.

This document describes how to use application programming interfaces (APIs) to perform operations on RDS DB instances, such as DB instance creation, backup and restoration, query, parameter modifications, and deletion. For details about all supported operations, see API Overview.

If you plan to access RDS through an API, ensure that you are familiar with RDS concepts. For details, see "Service Overview" in Relational Database Service User Guide.

Parent topic: Before You Start