Posted On: Apr 3, 2020

Starting today, Amazon RDS for SQL Server supports read replicas using Distributed Availability Groups within an AWS Region. Amazon RDS for SQL Server makes it easy to create replicas in the same AWS Region as the primary DB instance by fully managing the configuration of the Distributed Availability Group and maintaining secure network connections between a primary DB instance and its replicas. 

The read replicas feature is supported on SQL Server Enterprise Edition in the Multi-AZ configuration using Always On Availability Groups. This feature allows RDS SQL Server customers to offload their read workload from the primary DB instance to the replica, and also supports the scalability of read-heavy workloads over a farm of up to five read replicas. Read replicas can also render another level of availability by allowing you to promote a given read replica as a new standalone database, in the event of a failure of the primary DB instance. 

Read replica is billed as a standard DB instance, and at the same rates. Just like a standard DB instance, the rate per “DB instance hour” for a read replica is determined by the DB instance class of the read replica. 

To learn more about read replicas please refer to the Amazon RDS User Guide for more details. 

Amazon RDS for SQL Server makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale SQL Server deployments in the cloud. See Amazon RDS for SQL Server Pricing for pricing details and regional availability.