Announcing Amazon RDS for Db2 with license through AWS Marketplace

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for Db2 makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale Db2 deployments in the cloud. IBM Db2 is a relational database that supports large-scale transactional and analytical workloads. Amazon RDS manages time-consuming database administration tasks, such as provisioning, patching, backups, recovery, failure detection, and repair, so you can focus on applications and running your business.

In addition to the bring your own license option (BYOL), RDS for Db2 now supports licensing Db2 through AWS Marketplace for customers who do not have an existing IBM Db2 license. This new option allows customers to take advantage of hourly consumption-based billing for RDS for Db2 licenses. RDS for Db2 licenses through AWS Marketplace are available in all commercial AWS Regions.

Benefits of Amazon RDS for Db2 with license through AWS Marketplace option:

Licenses through the AWS Marketplace provide a host of benefits for customers using RDS for Db2 instances. First, it provides the agility to purchase IBM Db2 licenses for RDS on-demand with a self-service model. This translates to faster time to market and lets businesses empower their application development teams, letting them buy managed database services and database licenses via AWS and AWS Marketplace. Second, the consumption based billing can be beneficial for non-persistent database workloads, allowing customers to only pay for the licenses used. Non-production workloads, including those used for development, testing and staging, can make use of consumption-based licenses to create temporary environments similar to their production instance. And finally, unpredictable production workloads, such as database systems launched during disaster recovery testing or workloads experiencing peak bursts, can now use the hourly license to avoid the cost of over-provisioning.

Launching RDS for Db2 instance with license through AWS Marketplace:

Customers can simply launch an RDS instance from the AWS Management Console and specify the “Through AWS Marketplace” option when selecting their licensing model, this will take the customer through first part of a two step process:

RDS for Db2 license model selection

IBM Db2 license tracking and billing are facilitated by AWS Marketplace in the back end, as such the customer will be redirected to an AWS Marketplace page to accept the agreement.

RDS for Db2 Marketplace License MP agreement

This agreement is only required once per AWS account. Once you have subscribe to the AWS Marketplace offer, you can continue to configure RDS for Db2 as you normally do. You can also use the Command Line Interface (CLI), if you prefer.

RDS Db2 subscribe

For more details, see the RDS for Db2 pricing page. It should be noted that when you select a license through AWS Marketplace for an RDS for Db2 instance, there will be a separate billing line item on your bill. One line item for the Amazon RDS instance itself and another line item under Marketplace for the related Db2 licenses.

Moving from BYOL to AWS Marketplace, and vice versa.

Existing RDS for Db2 Bring Your Own License (BYOL) customers who wish to transition to a consumption-based model can make use of a point-in-time recovery (PiTR) to restore data from the existing RDS for Db2 BYOL instance to a new RDS for Db2 instance with licensing through AWS Marketplace. The process also works in reverse, if you choose to move to BYOL licensing from licensing through AWS Marketplace.

Summary

In this post, we showed how to get started with RDS for Db2’s new AWS Marketplace license option. Subscribe to the Db2 Standard Edition or Db2 Advanced Edition hourly license and deploy your instance by using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) or AWS Management Console. To learn more, visit Amazon RDS for Db2, documentation, RDS for Db2 FAQ, IBM Marketplace offers available in 92 Countries, for additional details.