The "instance" is the big MySQL bucket that will contain your actual database. The instance will have its own hostname and IP and can contain multiple databases. However, this walkthrough will only cover creating the database necessary for WordPress.

Instance Name

The instance name is a label used by Rackspace to identify the instance in the control panel and through the API. This name won't be used by WordPress, but we'll give it an easy to remember naming convention, like WPDB01 for WordPress database:

Give the instance a name, "WPDB01"

RAM and Disk

Because our Cloud Databases instance is highly optimized, we'll select the minimum configuration to lower costs. You can always scale up later.

Select the Amount of Ram, suggested: 512MB

Select the Amount of Disk, suggested: 1GB

Region

The region refers to the physical location of the Datacenter housing the instance. Remember that connections to your instance are limited to within the Rackspace private network, so your Cloud Server will have to be in the same region as your database. This will also ensure lightening fast communication between the two. This example uses the Dallas (DFW) region.

Give the database a Region, "Dallas (DFW)"