Hello Friends!
Back to you again with my all together new pick, Amazon Relation Database Service. Ah! interest, some of you might be wondering is this topic has nothing to do with SQL Server. Yes / NO ?
Working with RDS for few years and most of cases got to know from many of beginners or intermediate level DBA working with AWS RDS about a single place to know what to setup & configure and how to choose correct thing. This is quite a bit of subjective question, however I’d given a thought to come up with some kind of cheat sheet which can help my friends & peer working in AWS RDS world can move swiftly with their stuff. However before moving ahead, I would like you to go through DBA Guide of AWS RDS written by Waren Chaves. I found it extremely useful than going through multiple places and mug up.
Below is a consolidate sheet of how to chose what for respective environment with a brief supporting in notes. Perhaps not the best, but works very well. Pre-Requisites are something a DBA should know at first place & pretty documented either in form of email or ITIL tool to come with appropriate AWS RDS Instance for SQL Server.
| DB Details | Pre-Requisite | Prod & DR | NON-Prod | Notes |
| DB Engine | Yes | sqlserver-se | sqlserver-se | Default value – non editable |
| License Model | Yes | BYOB | BYOB | Select from drop down list per your organisation standard. I’ve choosen “Bring Your Own License” being much cheaper solution than “Include License” and let AWS charge you for it. |
| DB Engine Version | Yes | SQL Server 2014 | SQL Server 2014 | Supports upto SQL Server 2016 for Standard & Enterprise |
| DB Instance Class | Yes | Ex: db.r3.large | Ex: db.r3.large | 2 vCPU , 15 GiB RAM |
| Time Zone (Optional) | No | UTC | UTC | UTC |
| Multi-AZ Deployment | Yes | NO | NO | Dedicate Tenancy is required at Network Level is required to support Multi-AZ for AWS RDS “SQL Server” Instance. Please check with your AWS Account admin/Network Administrator before setting up AWS Instance. If it’s not in place, Multi-AZ setup will fail. |
| Storage Type | Yes | Provisioned IOPS SSD | General Purpose SSD | Chose is carefully it selection adds extra $ in billing. Until and unless needed “General Purpose SSD” works well. Scaling storage after launching a DB Instance is currently not supported for SQL Server. |
| Allocated Storage | Yes | Ex: 200 GB 1000 IOPS |
Ex: 200 GB | Can’t be change at any instance once provisioned for RDS SQL Server. |
| DB Instance Identifier | Yes | <As per request> | <As per request> | Example: AWSRDSSQLServer2014 |
| VPC | No | Default VPC | Default VPC | Will remain default until and unless specific details provided by Engineering Team. |
| Subnet Group | No | Default | Default | Will remain default until and unless specific details provided by Engineering Team. |
| Publicly Accessible | No | NO | NO | We shouldn’t setup Publicly Accessible to “No” for real builds. And also discourage to have no internet access from the VPC in which these DBs live for security reasons. |
| Availability Zone | Yes | Ex: us-east-1a | Ex: us-east-1b | If dedicated tenancy not in place at VPC level, Multi-Az isn’t suppported. However, there is another cheap solution available with this help of “Availability Zone”.
Multi-Zoning can be leveraged to address HA/DR solution by setting up two different stack of database same application/network/DB Setup. |
| VPC Security Group | No | Ex: ABC (vpc-Z1234567) | Ex: ABC (vpc-X1234567) | Only 1 VPC will be available under one AWS Account |
| Microsoft SQL Server Windows Authentication |
No | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Database Port | No | 1433 | 1433 | Default – 1433 |
| DB Parameter Group | No | default | default | default |
| Option Group | No | default | default | default |
| Copy Tags to Snapshots | No | Unchecked | Unchecked | Doesn’t really matter until and unless needed. |
| Enable Encryption | No | No | No | Currently AWS RDS SQL Server isn’t HIPAA complaint (expected in Q1 2017) so no encryption required. However this is good to have a feature. |
| Backup Retention | No | 35 days | 35 days | Maximum Backup Retention period available in AWS RDS is 35 days. |
| Backup Window | No | Ex: 00:30 | Ex: 00:30 | As per choice |
| Enable Enhanced Monitoring | No | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Monitoring Role | No | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Granularity | No | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Maintenance Window | No | N/A | N/A | Auto Minor Version Upgrade = No This change be change at any instance. |
Happy Learning!Don’t forget to give your feedback & queries.
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