SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. Amazon RDS for SQL Server makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale SQL Server deployments in the cloud. With Amazon RDS, you can deploy multiple editions of SQL Server (2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019), including Express, Web, Standard, and Enterprise, in minutes with cost-efficient and re-sizable compute capacity. Amazon RDS frees you up to focus on application development by managing time-consuming database administration tasks, including provisioning, backups, software patching, monitoring, and hardware scaling.
Amazon RDS for SQL Server supports the “License Included” licensing model. You do not need separately purchased Microsoft SQL Server licenses. "License Included" pricing is inclusive of software, underlying hardware resources, and Amazon RDS management capabilities.
You can take advantage of hourly pricing with no upfront fees or long-term commitments. In addition, you also have the option to purchase Reserved DB Instances under one or three year reservation terms. With Reserved DB Instances, you can make low, one-time, upfront payment for each DB Instance and then pay a significantly discounted hourly usage rate, achieving up to 65% net cost savings.
Amazon RDS for SQL Server DB Instances can be provisioned with either standard storage or Provisioned IOPS storage. Amazon RDS Provisioned IOPS is a storage option designed to deliver fast, predictable, and consistent I/O performance and is optimized for I/O-intensive, transactional (OLTP) database workloads.
Benefits of Amazon RDS for SQL Server
Customers
3M Health Care
“We have less need for manual maintenance. We can store a larger quantity of data for a longer time, can add nodes to the cluster when needed and we can do it in minutes!”
Dhanraj Shriyan, Enterprise Data Architect - 3M Health Care
Kaplan
“Amazon RDS allows our DBA team to focus less on the day-to-day maintenance and use their time to work on enhancements. Our goal is to move completely to RDS for all databases for ease of management and resizing capabilities. We have a level of control and standardization that we could not achieve within our on-premises data centers.”
Chad Marino, Executive Director of Tech Services - Kaplan
Mathnasium
“We chose AWS because it had high availability with multiple availability zones and nightly snapshots. It’s self-patching, maintenance is nil, and its security features mean we’re not worried about on-site data theft. By using AWS WAF and AWS shield technologies, we ensure our security infrastructure is scale-able and easy to maintain. AWS’s 24-hour support and access to AWS engineers has also been phenomenal.”
Jason Condello, VP of Technology - Mathnasium
Blog posts & articles
Capture and tune resource utilization metrics for Amazon RDS for SQL Server
December 12, 2022
Validate database objects after migrating from SAP ASE to Amazon RDS for SQL Server or Microsoft SQL Server
December 8, 2022
Migrate SSIS packages from Amazon S3 to Amazon RDS for SQL Server using the AWS CLI and PowerShell scripts
December 5, 2022