Posted On: Nov 20, 2019
Amazon FSx is announcing two new features that make it easier to deploy shared Windows storage for High Availability (HA) Microsoft SQL Server deployments: support for Continuously Available (CA) file shares and support for smaller file systems.
High availability (HA) Microsoft SQL Server is typically deployed across multiple database nodes in a Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC), with each node having access to shared file storage. Continuously Available (CA) file shares make file storage available in a way that’s optimized for Microsoft SQL Server. Starting today, you can create CA file shares on Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, enabling you to store your active Microsoft SQL Server data on a fully managed Windows file system in AWS.
Additionally, customers deploying Windows Server Failover Cluster commonly deploy an SMB file share witness to maintain quorum of the cluster’s resources. Witness file shares require only a small amount of storage for quorum information. Now, with support for smaller file systems (as small as 32GB in size), Amazon FSx is making it even more cost-effective to use FSx as a fully managed file system for file share witnesses.
Support for Microsoft SQL Server deployments (Continuously Available shares and smaller file system sizes) is available today in the following AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), EU (London), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Asia Pacific (Singapore), and EU (Stockholm). Learn more about Amazon FSx for Windows File Server in our pre-re:Invent Storage Day blog, and for more information about this new feature, see the Amazon FSx for Windows File Server documentation.