SQL Server Performance Benchmarking on AWS

With so many instance types to choose from, it can be challenging for architects and customers to choose the best ones to migrate their SQL Server workloads to AWS. Detailed specifications are available for each instance type and storage options, however all of this information may be difficult to map to real-world scenarios.

We are introducing the SQL Server Benchmarking whitepaper to address these challenges. It provides information about how to benchmark instance types to test how they perform. It also shows the performance numbers from benchmarking popular combinations of compute and storage.

The paper begins with an explanation of TPC-Benchmarking, introduces you to HammerDB, the industry default for database benchmarking, and then explains the scope of the tests. It then gives details on the environment, workload, instance types, storage, and SQL Server configurations. The results of three tests are discussed: the first tests GP2 volumes only, the second tests GP2 volumes with the transaction log on the local NVMe disks, and the third tests volumes from the instance store NVMe disks. Final recommendations are provided.

Read the whitepaper: SQL Server Performance on AWS

About the Authors

Alan Cranfield is a Senior Systems Engineer on the EC2 Windows team where he focuses on optimizing Windows workloads for AWS.

Bini Berhe is a Senior Solutions Architect and subject matter expert on the Microsoft Platform providing guidance and technical assistance to customers migrating their on-premises workloads to AWS.