Amazon EC2 Running Microsoft Windows Server & SQL Server

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Managing your Amazon EC2 with Windows Environment

Amazon EC2 makes it easy to start and manage your Windows-based instances. Amazon EC2 provides you with several pre-configured AMIs that allow you to start running instances in minutes. To find the most up-to-date listing of these images and their contents, please visit the AMI catalog.

Once you choose your AMI, there are several easy ways to start and manage your Windows-based instances. The AWS Management Console, a web-based console, and ElasticFox, a convenient FireFox plug-in, help you configure, launch, terminate, and even bundle your Amazon EC2 instances. These management tools enable you to employ a graphical interface to utilize all of the features of Amazon EC2, like Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon CloudWatch, Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, and Elastic IPs. To learn more about the AWS Management Console or ElasticFox, please visit the AWS Management Console or the ElasticFox Getting Started Guide. We also have command line tools (API Tools) available for those interested in implementing management scripts.

For more advanced topics about managing Windows-based instances, including tutorials, technical articles, and other resources available to help you manage your Windows-based instances, please visit the Windows and .Net Developer Center.

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Developing for the Windows Environment

You can manage your Amazon EC2 resources using our web service APIs. We provide the AWS SDK for .NET that enables you to call AWS infrastructure services (e.g., Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon SQS, and more) programmatically, so that you can build and deploy your applications within .NET.

To learn more about the resources available to AWS Developers developing in and for Windows-based environments, please visit the Windows and .NET Developer Center.

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Amazon EC2 running Microsoft SQL Server

Amazon EC2 running Windows Server with SQL Server offers you the flexibility to run a database server for as much or as little time as you need. We offer Amazon EC2 with three versions of Microsoft SQL Server: SQL Server Express Edition, SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition, and SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition. Microsoft SQL Server Express enables you to make use of up to 4GB of memory. AWS provides a publicly available AMI that is prebundled with SQL Server Express, Internet Information Services (IIS) and ASP.NET to help you get started quickly. Many customers use this version for their Web 2.0 applications and ASP.NET applications. This AMI may be used with Amazon EC2 running Windows Server at no additional cost.

SQL Server Standard Edition does not have a storage limit, which enables use cases that require larger databases including enterprise-scale Windows-based applications, massively scalable web sites, and high performance computing applications. Both versions of SQL Server integrate into Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), enabling you to take advantage of the persistence, performance, and reliability of Amazon EBS for all your databases.

More resources about instances running SQL Server can be found at the Windows and .NET Developer Center. Click here to learn more about database options with AWS.

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Pricing

Pay only for what you use. There is no minimum fee. Estimate your monthly bill using the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator.

On-Demand Instances

SQL Server Express Edition, Microsoft IIS and ASP.NET can be used on any Amazon EC2 instance running Windows Server for no additional cost.

Pricing is per instance-hour of Amazon EC2 consumed for each instance type. Partial instance-hours consumed are billed as full hours.

Reserved Instances

Reserved Instances can be purchased for 1 or 3 year terms, and the one-time fee per instance is non-refundable. Usage pricing is per instance-hour consumed. Instance-hours are billed for the time that instances are in a running state; if you do not run the instance in an hour, there is zero usage charge. Partial instance-hours consumed are billed as full hours. Reserved Instances are only available for the Linux/UNIX and Windows operating systems. Click here to learn more about Reserved Instances.

If Microsoft chooses to increase the license fees that it charges for Windows, we may correspondingly increase the per-hour usage rate for previously purchased Reserved Instances with Windows. The initial one-time payment for a Reserved Instance will be unaffected in this situation. Any such changes would be made between Dec 1 – Jan 31, with at least 30 days’ notice. If the per-hour usage price does increase, you may continue to use your Reserved Instance with Windows with the new per-hour usage price, convert your Reserved Instance with Windows to a Reserved Instance with Linux, or request a pro rata refund of the upfront fee you paid for the Reserved Instance with Windows.

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* Microsoft, Windows Server, SQL Server, and Silverlight are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies