AWS News Blog
Now Available – Microsoft SQL Server 2017 for Amazon EC2
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Microsoft SQL Server 2017 (launched just a few days ago) includes lots of powerful new features including support for graph databases, automatic database tuning, and the ability to create clusterless Always On Availability Groups. It can also be run on Linux and in Docker containers.
Run on EC2
I’m happy to announce that you can now launch EC2 instances that run Windows Server 2016 and four editions (Web, Express, Standard, and Enterprise) of SQL Server 2017. The AMIs (Amazon Machine Images) are available today in all AWS Regions and run on a wide variety of EC2 instance types, including the new x1e.32xlarge with 128 vCPUs and almost 4 TB of memory.
You can launch these instances from the AWS Management Console or through AWS Marketplace. Here’s what they look like in the console:
And in AWS Marketplace:
Licensing Options Galore
You have lots of licensing options for SQL Server:
Pay As You Go – This option works well if you would prefer to avoid buying licenses, are already running an older version of SQL Server, and want to upgrade. You don’t have to deal with true-ups, software compliance audits, or Software Assurance and you don’t need to make a long-term purchase. If you are running the Standard Edition of SQL Server, you also benefit from our recent price reduction, with savings of up to 52%.
License Mobility – This option lets your use your active Software Assurance agreement to bring your existing licenses to EC2, and allows you to run SQL Server on Windows or Linux instances.
Bring Your Own Licenses – This option lets you take advantage of your existing license investment while minimizing upgrade costs. You can run SQL Server on EC2 Dedicated Instances or EC2 Dedicated Hosts, with the potential to reduce operating costs by licensing SQL Server on a per-core basis. This option allows you to run SQL Server 2017 on EC2 Linux instances (SUSE, RHEL, and Ubuntu are supported) and also supports Docker-based environments running on EC2 Windows and Linux instances. To learn more about these options, read the Installation Guidance for SQL Server on Linux and Run SQL Server 2017 Container Image with Docker.
Learn More
To learn more about SQL Server 2017 and to explore your licensing options in depth, take a look at the SQL Server on AWS page.
If you need advice and guidance as you plan your migration effort, check out the AWS Partners who have qualified for the Microsoft Workloads competency and focus on database solutions.
Plan to join the AWS team at the PASS Summit (November 1-3 in Seattle) and at AWS re:Invent (November 27th to December 1st in Las Vegas).
— Jeff;
PS – Special thanks to my colleague Tom Staab (Partner Solutions Architect) for his help with this post!