AWS Strengthens Support for Microsoft SQL Server Customers

By Tom Staab, Partner Solutions Architect at AWS

This past week in Seattle, more than 5,000 people attended the annual PASS Summit conference, and AWS was well represented. Once again, AWS had a large booth in the exhibit hall, and hundreds of people stopped by over the three-day event. Several technical sessions provided insight for running Microsoft SQL Server workloads on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the AWS Partner Network (APN) co-sponsored a breakfast with over 150 attendees.

You may have read in Jeff Barr’s recent article on the AWS News Blog that Microsoft launched its SQL Server 2017, which then became available on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) in all regions shortly after. That means the latest version of Microsoft SQL Server is now available with the security, scalability, performance, and flexibility of Amazon EC2.

Running Microsoft SQL Server 2017 on AWS enables you to benefit from its new features such as graph databases, automatic database tuning, and clusterless Always On availability groups. All of this while leveraging the high availability and disaster recovery capabilities of AWS with low latency connectivity between all AWS Availability Zones (AZs) .

This is just one example of the many innovations that help customers run Microsoft SQL Server workloads on AWS. In May, AWS released a new Quick Start featuring SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition from Advanced APN Technology Partner SIOS, making it even easier to implement Microsoft SQL Server failover cluster instances on Amazon EC2. In August, the maximum storage capacity for Amazon Relationship Database Service (Amazon RDS) instances running Microsoft SQL Server was increased from 4 TB to 16 TB, and the potential IOPS was increased fivefold. And just last week, Amazon RDS for Microsoft SQL Server gained the ability to reconfigure the volume type and Provisioned IOPS (PIOPS) upon snapshot restore.

All Microsoft SQL Server versions integrate with AWS services including Amazon CloudWatch (to monitor operations and performance), Amazon EC2 Run Command (to remotely manage instances), and Amazon Elastic Block Store (to take advantage of the persistent, performance, and reliable storage). This helps provide you with easy management, monitoring, and other administrative tasks.

Learn More About Microsoft SQL Server on AWS

For more information on how AWS services contribute to improved performance, security, and availability of Microsoft SQL Server applications, we invite you to join us at our AWS re:Invent 2017 conference, November 27 through December 1 in Las Vegas.

Leveraging the AWS Competency Program for Microsoft Workloads

In July, we announced Microsoft SQL Server will be represented in a new Database Solutions category of our AWS Microsoft Workloads Competency. This allows customers to easily identify and engage the right APN Partners.

The AWS Competency Program is valuable to APN Partners as a way to demonstrate proficiency, and it is an important vehicle for customers to find APN Partners with the knowledge and experience they need. There are currently 12 APN Partners in the Microsoft Workloads Competency Database Solutions category, and several others have begun the approval process.

We appreciate the dedication and hard work of our Microsoft Workloads Competency APN Partners and continue to look for Advanced and Premier APN Partners with experience implementing Microsoft SQL Server on AWS to join this elite group. Check out the AWS Microsoft Workloads Competency site if you are a customer or APN Partner looking to work with an APN Partner who has already earned the competency.

Proven Success with Microsoft SQL Server Workloads

The new Microsoft SQL Server launch means customers will be considering upgrades, and APN Partners that have earned the competency play an important role in helping you with these projects.

In their own words, here are some success stories from APN Partners who have delivered Microsoft SQL projects:

Cascadeo

“Scaling database systems like MSSQL is notoriously challenging and expensive work. AWS makes it possible to radically simplify the deployment, operation, monitoring, and scaling of MSSQL while still allowing the flexibility to manage complex configurations and support legacy applications. In short, MSSQL on AWS is an order-of-magnitude improvement relative to yesterday’s approach.” – Jared Reimer, CTO at Cascadeo

Case Study: Cascadeo helps MacDonald-Miller with cloud migration >>

Datapipe

“Microsoft SQL 2017 enables clients to build modern applications using the language of their choice, Windows, Linux, and Docker containers on the AWS Cloud. The AWS Competency Program is designed to provide customers with qualified APN members, like Datapipe, who have demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in specialized solution and vertical areas. Our service helps clients harness the full potential of the AWS platform with a plan, build and run approach to using Microsoft SQL Server whether on EC2 or RDS and now with SQL Server 2017 on EC2 Windows or Linux instances or with Docker containers.” – David Lucky, Director of Product Management at Datapipe

Case Study: Datapipe helps iCIMS manage SQL databases >>

Datavail

“Datavail’s commitment to achieving the Microsoft Workloads Competency represents our superior ability to support any customer running SQL Server in AWS EC2 and RDS and to assist with all AWS migrations.” – Eric Russo, SVP of Database Services at Datavail

Case Study: Datavail helps Sony with SQL-related cloud migration >>

Ensono

“The CIO’s job continues to get more complex as they seek to find balance between innovation, operational efficiency, and security to help drive business growth. Whether migrating heavy workloads or optimizing performance of enterprise applications, when partnering with an AWS Competency Partner, our clients can focus on business demands, while addressing performance, availability, security, and integrity of SQL data. As one of only two APN partners in EMEA with the SQL Competency, our goal is to enable our clients to continue doing great work with no interruption.” – Brett Moss, SVP and General Manager of Hyperscale Cloud at Ensono

Case Study: Ensono helps Nisa Retail with stock management system >>

InfoReliance

“InfoReliance is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner, Audited MSP, with DevOps and Microsoft Workloads on AWS Competencies—providing customers with expert solutions to deploy all their Microsoft workloads in AWS. This includes the newly released SQL Server 2017 delivered in scalable AWS configurations designed to meet any customer needs—from entry level database to enterprise data center workloads requiring up to 16 TB of storage—and offered across AWS’s global region platform. When it comes to combining expertise in AWS, database, and SQL Server platforms into an integrated solution, InfoReliance is ready to help.” – John Sankovich, EVP of Cloud Solutions at InfoReliance

Case Study: InfoReliance helps a National Political Nonprofit with SQL solutions >>

REAN Cloud

“REAN Cloud helps our customers to get the most from their investment in AWS Cloud services. We value the recognition of our enterprise migration expertise spanning multiple technologies like Microsoft, Java, Oracle, SQL Server, and open source that this AWS Microsoft Competency represents. REAN Accelerator Platform uses strong AWS Cloud services to support Microsoft Workloads to help its customers get the most value out of their cloud investment while building best-in-class secure architecture blueprints such as federating identity management with Active Directory integration providing the highest level of security possible.” – Sekhar Puli, Managing Partner and Co-founder at REAN Cloud

Case Study: REAN Cloud helps Ditech modernize IT infrastructure >>

Six Nines IT

“As a cloud-native AWS Partner who proudly holds a SQL Server Competency, we feel that the Competency Center provides an incredible service to both the customer and us. Firstly, a customer can quickly find the right AWS Partner who is on top of the food chain in the skill set they are seeking. Secondly, by attaining a specific competency, a partner can demonstrate their deep knowledge of a subject matter.” – Jason Cutrer, Founder at Six Nines IT

Case Study: Six Nines IT helps Zola Media migrate on-premises CRM infrastructure >>