Amazon Web Services Now Support Microsoft SQL

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a range of new features for its Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) service.

Amazon now allows users to start Microsoft SQL Server as RDS instances inside VPC. All versions of Microsoft's SQL Server are supported and multiple editions of the database can be deployed.

Amazon is offering the feature in two different service tiers, as "License Included" and "License Mobility through Software Assurance (or Bring Your Own License – BYOL)". Pricing starts at $0.035 per hour for the License Included Model, including software, underlying hardware resources, and Amazon RDS management features. Those who license SQL Server via Microsoft's License Mobility program can run the software on AWS automatically and are covered by their license contract.

In addition to SQL Server, AWS RDS also supports MySQL and Oracle Database 11g. Specifically for Oracle, AWS also announced Data Pump to speed up data transfers between databases. The services allows users to import and export  data to AWS RDS from on-premise databases and databases running on Amazon EC2. Data Pump requires version 11.2.0.2.v5 of the database engine.

Wolfgang Gruener is a contributor to Tom's IT Pro. He is currently principal analyst at Ndicio Research, a market analysis firm that focuses on cloud computing and disruptive technologies, and maintains the conceivablytech.com blog. An 18-year veteran in IT journalism and market research, he previously published TG Daily and was managing editor of Tom's Hardware news, which he grew from a link collection in the early 2000s into one of the most comprehensive and trusted technology news sources.

See here for all of Wolfgang's Tom's IT Pro articles.