We love SQL Server running on AWS almost as much as our customers

We love SQL Server running on AWS almost as much as our customers. Microsoft SQL server 2019 became generally available on November 8, 2019, and is now available to on AWS. More customers run SQL Server on AWS than any other cloud, and trust AWS for a number of reasons.

The first is performance. Recent performance benchmarks show that AWS delivers great price-performance for running SQL server. ZK Research points out that SQL Server on AWS consistently shows a price performance using HammerDB, a TPC-C-like benchmark tool compared to Azure, that’s over two times better. These results come from analysis done by ZKResearch based on independent testing results published by DBBest. Furthermore, we offer fast and high throughput storage options with Amazon EBS and local NVMe instance storage. We know that getting better application performance is critical for your customer’s satisfaction. In fact, excellent application performance leads to 39% higher* customer satisfaction, while poor performance may lead to damaged reputations or, even worse, customer attrition. To make sure you have the best possible experience for your customers, we have focused on pushing the boundaries around performance.

For example, the value of running SQL Server on AWS is shown in Pearson’s migration story. Pearson is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Prentice Hall, eCollege, and others. Schoolnet , one of their offerings, tests tens of millions of students and is used by tens of thousands of educators. Pearson migrated Schoolnet, which was an on-premises application that used SQL Server, over to the AWS cloud. The goal of the migration was to ensure that the high volume of tests done daily would run efficiently and effectively. As many customers do, Pearson build for the worst-case demand, and had over-provisioned with a massive infrastructure utilized for potential (real!) peaks. When they moved to AWS, not only did they see efficiencies in cost but SQL Server was far easier to manage and was much faster. In fact, at our reInvent conference, Ian Wright told the audience that they had so much feedback coming into the level 2 support desk that was positive from the migration in particular, that Schoolnet was running faster than ever before!

Second, customers need high availability for mission-critical applications written using SQL Server. We have the best global infrastructure for running workloads that require high availability. The AWS Global Infrastructure underlays SQL Server on AWS and spans 69 Availability Zones (AZs) within 22 geographic regions around the world. These AZs are designed for physical redundancy and provide resilience, which enables uninterrupted performance. In 2018, the next-largest cloud provider had almost seven times more downtime hours than AWS.

Third, while CIOs tell us that cost is not the key factor in their decision to move to the cloud (agility and innovation are usually at the center of their motivation), they are often impressed with the cost savings they see when bringing their SQL server workloads to AWS. We typically see at least 20% savings with just a lift-and-shift. Over the first few months, you can continue to optimize your EC2 instances for an additional 10–20% savings. By adopting higher level services, you can further optimize—many customers saw 60% or more savings.

For example, Axinom ran its Windows-based applications in an on-premises environment that made it difficult to scale to meet increasing user traffic. The company also wanted to boost scalability and cut costs. Axinom moved its applications, including Axinom CMS and Axinom DRM, to the AWS Cloud. The company runs its Microsoft SQL Server–based platform on AWS and Spot Instances to optimize costs. As Johannes Jauch, the Chief Technology Officer of Axinom, said, “We have cut costs for supporting our digital media supply chain services by 70 percent using AWS products such as Amazon Spot Instances. As a result, we can provide more competitive pricing for our global customers.” And Axinom is not the only customers. Customers like Salesforce, Adobe, and Decisiv are benefitting from increased productivity and agility running SQL Server on AWS. You can read more about how customers are unlocking maximum business value by migrating to AWS.

And finally, not only does AWS offers more security, compliance, and governance services and key features than the next largest cloud provider, we also have the most migration experience.

All these benefits mean that the new features of SQL Server 2019, such as big data clusters, always being encrypted with secure enclaves, and improvements in SQL on Linux features, run better on AWS. We are also happy to announce that you can now launch EC2 instances that run Windows Server 2019/2016 and four editions of SQL Server 2019 (Web, Express, Standard, and Enterprise). The Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) are available today in all AWS Regions and run on a wide variety of EC2 instance types. You can launch these instances from the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or through AWS Marketplace. To get started with SQL 2019 on AWS, you can either purchase a License Included EC2 instance, or, if you have software assurance, you also have two Bring Your Own License (BYOL) options! You can BYOL SQL Server on an AWS instance with license-included Windows, or can BYOL SQL Server on a dedicated host with BYOL Windows (provided the Windows license was purchased before October 1, 2019).

Join the customers on SQL Server on AWS today! To learn more about SQL Server 2019 and to explore your licensing options, visit Microsoft SQL Server on AWS. If you need advice and guidance as you plan your migration effort, check out the AWS Partners who have qualified for the AWS Microsoft Workloads Competency and focus on database solutions. Please join me and the AWS team at AWS re:Invent (December 2–6 in Las Vegas).

*Source: Netmagic, https://www.netmagicsolutions.com/data/images/WP_How-End-User-Experience-Affects-Your-Bottom-Line16-08-231471935227.pdf