Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a flexible, cost-effective, easy-to-use cloud computing platform. Relational database management systems are widely deployed within the Amazon cloud. In this webinar and the corresponding whitepaper, we discuss how to deploy SQL Server databases on AWS using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) or Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and the advantages of each approach. After this webinar you will be able to make an educated decision and choose the solution that best fits your needs. Learning Objectives: • Learn about best practices for securing, managing and optimizing your SQL Server deployment in both Amazon RDS and Amazon EC2 • Understand how to choose the best SQL Server deployment approach for your workload and how to manage scalability, performance, backup and recovery, high availability and data migration Who Should Attend: • Developers, DBAs

1. © 2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Ghim-Sim Chua, Darryl Osborne, Vlad
Vlasceanu
06/18/2015
Best Practices for SQL Server on
Amazon RDS and Amazon EC2

2. Running SQL Server Workloads on AWS
How do you run SQL Server on AWS?
How do you run it efficiently and securely?
How do you deploy and operate a
high performance SQL Server
workload at scale?

3. How Do You Run
SQL Server on AWS?

4. The AWS Global Infrastructure
11 Regions Worldwide
Geographic areas where AWS services
are available
30 Availability Zones (AZs)
Multiple, isolated locations within a
region
Choose which regions and availability
zones to deploy your workloads in.

5. AWS Services to Use when deploying SQL Server
Amazon Virtual Private
Cloud (VPC)
Amazon Elastic Compute
Cloud (EC2)
Amazon Relational
Database Service (RDS)
AWS Identity and Access
Management (IAM)
AWS Key Management
Service (KMS)
Amazon Elastic Block
Storage (EBS)

6. Amazon RDS for SQL Server
Solutions for Running SQL Server on AWS
SQL Server on EC2 Instances
Power, HVAC, net
Rack & stack
Server maintenance
OS patches
DB s/w patches
Database backups
High availability
DB s/w installs
OS installation
Scaling
App optimization
Power, HVAC, net
Rack & stack
Server maintenance
OS patches
DB s/w patches
Database backups
High availability
DB s/w installs
OS installation
Scaling
App optimization
AWS manages
You manage
?

7. Amazon RDS for SQL Server
• We recommend you consider RDS first
• Focus on tasks that bring value to your
business
• Focus on high level tuning tasks and
schema optimization
• Lack of in-house expertise managing
databases
Choosing the Right Solution for Your Needs
SQL Server on EC2 Instances
• You need full control over the DB instances
• Control over backups, replication and
clustering
• Use features and options not available in
Amazon RDS
• Size and performance needs exceed
Amazon RDS offering

8. Let’s Talk About Best Practices
for SQL Server on AWS

9. Run SQL Server Effectively on AWS
Features Security Scalability, Sizing
and Performance
Cost Optimization

10. SQL Server Feature Support on AWS
Amazon RDS for SQL Server SQL Server on Amazon EC2
Versions Supported: 2008 R2, 2012 2005*, 2008*, 2008 R2, 2012, 2014
Editions Supported: Express, Web, Standard, Enterprise*
High Availability: Automated failover, Multi-AZ Self-managed (AlwaysOn, Mirroring,
Log Shipping)
Encryption: Encrypted Storage using Amazon KMS (all editions); TDE Support
Authentication: SQL Server Authentication only Windows and SQL Server Auth.
Backups: Managed Automated Backups Leverage Maintenance Plans, or 3rd
party
Patching and
Maintenance:
Automatic Software Patching Self-managed
* Self installed

11. Run Your SQL Server Securely on AWS
Network Layer
Controls
DB Instance Access
Controls
Data Access
Controls
Encryption
Consider the following security layers offered by AWS:

12. Securing SQL Server on AWS: The Network
Amazon VPC: control subnets, AZ
specificity (DB Subnet Groups), route
tables and NACLs
Security Groups: restrict instance
traffic
Public Access: avoid it or limit it
1
2
3

13. Securing SQL Server on AWS: Instance Access
Control: Use IAM to control instance
lifecycle permissions, grant least
privileges
Audit: Use Amazon CloudTrial to log
AWS API invocations
1
2

14. Securing SQL Server on AWS: Data Access
Grant Least Privileges to applications
and end users
Amazon RDS: SQL Server
Authentication only
Amazon EC2: Windows and SQL Server
Authentication
1
2
3

15. Securing SQL Server on AWS: Encryption
Protect data at rest
Encrypted DB instances using Amazon KMS,
TDE, Column-level, encrypt before saving
Secure data in transit
Encrypted connections via SSL
1
2

16. Sizing to Meet Your Workload Demands
What is your workload’s demand pattern?
Constant, steady-state
Predictable fluctuations, steady-state
Growing, but predictable
Fluctuating, spiky

17. Sizing to Meet Your Workload Demands (cont.)
Range of DB
instance types
From: 1 vCPU and
1 GB of RAM
To: 40 vCPUs and
244 GB of RAM
Grouped in instance
families:
General Purpose
Memory Optimized
Compute Optimized
etc.
Scale up/down by
changing the
instance class
EC2
EC2
EC2
EC2
M4

18. Optimize Your SQL Server for Cost
SQL Server operational costs depend on:
region selected
instance class/type
storage type and size
runtime
Multi-AZ mode
pricing model
licensing model

19. The AWS Pricing Models Compared
On-Demand
Pay by the hour
No term commitment
EC2 Reserved Instances
No-upfront
Partial-upfront
All-upfront RIs
RDS Reserved Instances
Heavy
Medium
Light
Reserved Instances (RIs) available for 1 and 3 year terms
Save up to 60% over on-demand costs

20. Diving Deeper Into Running
SQL Server at Scale on AWS

21. Manage Your SQL Server Resources on AWS
Amazon
EC2 & RDS
Management
Console
AWS Command
Line Tools (CLI)
or
AWS Tools for
PowerShell
AWS SDKs AWS
CloudFormation
templates
Multiple ways to start and manage your AWS SQL Server resources

22. AWS Resource Management
Amazon RDS
Management Console

23. AWS Resource Management
AWS CLI
aws rds create-db-instance
--db-instance-identifier MSSQLInstance
--allocated-storage 200
--db-instance-class db.m2.4xlarge
--engine sqlserver-se
--license-model license-included
--master-username awsuser
--master-user-password mypassword

24. AWS Resource Management
{
"AWSTemplateFormatVersion" : "2010-09-09",
"Resources" : {
"DBInstance" : {
"Type": "AWS::RDS::DBInstance",
"Properties": {
"DBInstanceIdentifier" : "MSSQLInstance",
"Engine" : "sqlserver-se",
"LicenseModel" : "license-included",
"DBInstanceClass" : "db.m2.4xlarge",
"AllocatedStorage" : "200",
"MasterUsername" : "awsuser",
"MasterUserPassword" : "mypassword"
}
}
}
}
AWS Cloudformation

25. Monitoring Your SQL Server Workloads
Set Alarms & Notifications for abnormal conditions
Default metrics for Amazon EC2 & Amazon RDS
Add custom metrics (Amazon EC2)
Monitor performance using Amazon CloudWatch

26. Amazon RDS for SQL Server
Always Run Production Workloads in
Multi-AZ Mode
• Primary and secondary DB nodes in
different Availability Zones (AZ)
• Leverages SQL Server Mirroring
• Automatic failover (1-2 min. typically)
High Availability (HA)

27. High Availability (HA)
SQL Server on Amazon EC2
Use Native SQL Server Features:
• Log Shipping: typically used for DR,
increases availability
• Database Mirroring: mirrors principal to
secondary
• AlwaysOn Availability Groups: failover of
database group

28. Storage System I/O Performance
Amazon RDS Amazon EC2
Type Size Performance Size Performance Burst Capacity Pricing Model
Magnetic
Storage
20 GiB – 1 TiB ~ 100 IOPS 1 GiB – 1 TiB ~ 100 IOPS Yes, several
hundred IOPS
Allocated
storage; I/O
operations
General
Purpose
(SSD)
20 GiB – 4 TiB
(min. 100 GiB
recommended)
3 IOPS/GiB 1 GiB – 16 TiB 3 IOPS/GiB for
volumes 1 TiB
or less, up to
10,000 IOPS
for larger
volumes
Yes, up to
3000 IOPS per
volume,
subject to
credits (< 1 TiB
in size)
Allocated
storage
Provisioned
IOPS
(SSD)
100 GiB – 4 TiB
(min. 200 GiB
for Standard
ed.)
10 IOPS/GiB,
up to max.
20,000 IOPS
4 GiB – 16 TiB Up to 20,000
IOPS; ratio: 3
to 30 IOPS per
GiB
No, fixed
allocation
Allocated
storage;
Provisioned
IOPS

29. I/O Performance Planning
When sizing your storage subsystem keep in mind:
• Amazon RDS maximum channel bandwidth: 1000 Mbps
full duplex
• Amazon EBS maximum volume throughput: 320 MiB/s
• IOPS provisioning: each I/O up to 256 KiB = 1 IOPS
• Average Queue Depth: I/O requests waiting to be serviced

30. I/O Performance Planning
When sizing your storage subsystem keep in mind:
• First touch penalty for EBS volumes
• Consider Instance Storage with strong backup strategy
for high performance databases
• Amazon EC2: Consider striping multiple EBS volumes
• Amazon RDS: Storage cannot scale once deployed

31. Amazon RDS Built-in Management Features
• Automated backup and recovery
Max. Retention: 35 days
Restore to any second, typically up
to the last 5 minutes
• Push-button DB instance class scaling
• Automatic host replacement

32. Amazon RDS Built-in Management Features
• Automatic minor version upgrade
• Pre-configured parameters and options
• Configurable administrative windows of
time:
Backup Window: at least 30min
once a day
Maintenance Window: at least
30min once a week

33. Amazon RDS SQL Server Tooling Support
• Manage using common tools: e.g. SSMS
• Migrate data using:
Amazon RDS Migration Tool
Microsoft SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard
• Maximum 30 databases per Amazon RDS
instance
• Data source for SSAS, SSIS and SSRS

34. Amazon RDS SQL Server Tooling Support
Not available on DB instance:
SSAS
SSIS
SSRS
Not supported:
Maintenance Plans
Database Mail
Linked Servers
MSDTC

35. Thank You!
Additional Resources
RDBMS in the Cloud: Deploying SQL Server on AWS:
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/rdbms-in-the-cloud-sql-server-on-aws.pdf
Implementing Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering and SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability
Groups in the AWS Cloud:
http://aws.amazon.com/windows/resources/whitepapers/alwayson/

36. AWS Summit – Chicago: An exciting, free cloud conference designed to educate and inform new
customers about the AWS platform, best practices and new cloud services.
Details
• July 1, 2015
• Chicago, Illinois
• @ McCormick Place
Featuring
• New product launches
• 36+ sessions, labs, and bootcamps
• Executive and partner networking
Registration is now open
• Come and see what AWS and the cloud can do for you.
• Click here to register: http://amzn.to/1RooPPL