Learn how SQL Server on AWS gives you complete control over every setting, without the maintenance, backup and patching requirements of traditional on-site solutions. Discover how to provision and monitor your SQL Server databases in both Amazon RDS and Amazon EC2, and how to optimise scalability, performance, availability, security and disaster recovery.

1. SQL Server Deep Dive
Julien Lépine, Principal Solutions Architect

2. Quick word on logistics
q Content of today’s webinar
• Presentation: 30 minutes
• Q&A: 15 minutes
q Please ask questions in the questions pane
q Slides will be made available for download

3. SQL Server Requirements: Well Architected
SECURITY COST OPTIMIZATIONRELIABILITY PERFORMANCE
OPERATIONAL
EXCELLENCE

4. Security: network layer
Amazon VPC: Control subnets, AZ
specificity (DB subnet groups), route
tables and NACLs
Security groups: restrict instance traffic
by IP range or from other security group
Audit: Amazon VPC Flow Logs for
network traffic
1
2
3
VPC

5. Network Security

6. Network Auditing

7. More interactivity

8. Security: instance access
Control: Use AWS Identity and Access
Management (IAM) to control instance
lifecycle permissions, grant least
privileges
Audit: Use AWS CloudTrail to log AWS
API invocations
1
2

9. AWS auditing with AWS CloudTrail
FULL VISIBILITY
AUDITABILITY

10. Security: data access
Control: grant least privileges to
applications and end users
Integrated: Windows and SQL Server
authentication
1
2

11. Security: encryption
Protect data at rest by encrypted DB
instances using AWS KMS,
TDE, column-level, encrypt before saving
Secure data in transit by encrypting
connections via SSL
1
2

12. Amazon EC2 Best Practices for High Availability
Availability Zone B
Private subnet
SQL2
Availability Zone A
Private subnet
SQL1
Clustering
Amazon VPC in an AWS Region

13. Failover Cluster Instances
Availability Zone 1
Primary
Replica
Availability Zone 2
Secondary
Replica
Shared Storage
Automated Failover (DNS)

14. Mirroring and Always On Availability Groups
Availability Zone 1
Primary
Replica
Availability Zone 2
Secondary
Replica
Witness
Server
Availability Zone 3
Synchronous Replication +
Automated Failover +
Leader Election

15. Mirroring and Always On Availability Groups (2 AZs)
Availability Zone 1
Primary
Replica
Availability Zone 2
Secondary
Replica
Witness
Server
Synchronous Replication +
Automated Failover +
Leader ElectionLeader
Election

16. High Availability and Scalability with Readable Replica
Availability Zone 1
Private Subnet
Primary
Replica
Availability Zone 2
Private Subnet
Secondary
Replica 1
Synchronous-commit Synchronous-commit Asynchronous-commit
Secondary
Replica 2
(Readable)
Reporting
Application
Synchronous Replication +
Automated Failover
Asynchronous Replication +
Manual Failover

17. Multi-Region High Availability
Availability Zone 1
Private Subnet
Primary
Replica
Availability Zone 2
Secondary
Replica 1
Private Subnet
Other AWS region
Secondary
Replica 2
(Readable)
AWS Direct
Connect
Availability Zone 1
Private Subnet
VPN
connection
Backups
Synchronous Replication
+ Automated Failover
Asynchronous Replication +
Manual Failover

18. SQL Server Disaster Recovery
Availability Zone 1
Private Subnet
Primary
Replica
Availability Zone 2
Secondary
Replica 1
Private Subnet
Secondary
Replica 2
(Readable)
AWS Direct
Connect
VPN
connection
Backups
Synchronous Replication
+ Automated Failover
Asynchronous Replication +
Manual Failover
Corporate Network

19. Performance: Optimizing Amazon EC2
Compute
Capabilities
vCPUs
Network
Performance
MB/s
(Throughput)
Memory
Capabilities
GB of RAM

20. Performance: Optimizing Storage
q Amazon EC2
• Network Throughput / EBS Optimized
• Ephemeral storage (HDD / SSD / NVMe)
q Amazon EBS
• SSD (General Purpose / Provisioned IOPS)
• HDD (Throughput Optimized / Cold Storage)
q Microsoft Windows optimization
• Storage Spaces: RAID / Stripe

21. Further Optimization
q System optimizations
q Database engine optimizations
q Database specific optimizations

22. Hess Uses AWS to Streamline Data Center Migration in 6 Months
• When Hess divested its Energy Marketing division,
the IT department had to create a separate
environment that could be handed off to a buyer
• Working with APN partner, Nimbo, Hess packaged
and moved the infrastructure, including 300 servers
and almost 500 TB of data, to the AWS Cloud
• Using AWS gave Hess the flexibility to build out
100 servers in one day
• Hess met the six-month divestiture deadline
and transferred the business to the buyer in a
30-minute meeting
“The flexibility and scale of
AWS enabled us to rapidly
migrate a fully functional
infrastructure for our divested
business in just 6 months.”
Jim McDonald
Lead Architect, Hess
”
“
Hess Corporation is a leading global independent
energy company

23. Licensing options
License Included
• Amazon manages
license compliance
• Pay-as-you-go
• Dedicated or shared
infrastructure
• No license
management cost on
your side
Hybrid
• BYOL for steady-state
workloads
• Leverage elasticity
and pay-as-you-go
everywhere possible
• License compliance
management effort
limited
BYOL
• Import and use your
own software
• Reduce costs by re-
using existing ISV
contracts
• You manage license
compliance
• ISV contracts with
longer-term
engagements

24. ”
“
Infor Saves 75% on Database Backup Costs Using AWS
Infor builds business applications that are
delivered securely through the cloud for select
industries.
We’ve seen much stronger
performance for our database
backup workloads with the
Amazon EBS st1 volumes.
• Needed to gain agility, shorten database backup
times, and improve application availability
• Runs more than 30 customer-facing applications on
AWS
• Saves 75 percent on monthly database backup costs
• Completes application backups 30 percent faster
• Keeps pace with global business growth
Randy Young
Director of Cloud Operations
”
“

25. Monitoring your SQL Server performance
Monitor performance using Amazon CloudWatch
Alarms & notifications: Amazon RDS & Amazon EC2
Default metrics: Amazon RDS & Amazon EC2
Custom metrics: Amazon EC2
1
2
3
CPU Utilization
Read / Write IOPS
Disk Queue Depth
Memory (RDS)
Storage Space (RDS)
Connections (RDS)
I/O Throughput (EC2)
…

26. Amazon RDS built-in management features
1 Highly available: multi-AZ deployment
available with SQL Server Mirroring
2 Automated backup: for your databases,
with point-in-time recovery
3 Up-to-date: automatic minor version
upgrade, simplified major version upgrade
4 Agile: with push button instance scalability
5
Monitored: integrated with Active
Directory, running in Amazon VPC

27. Monitoring

28. Using Amazon RDS
Familiar: use your existing tools and
practices (SQL Management Studio…)
Managed: simply connect and use it,
focus on your business
1
2
Secure: integrated with Active Directory,
running in Amazon VPC
3
Configurable: leverage existing or
customize parameter and option sets
4

29. Amazon RDS SQL Server Domain Integrated

30. Migrating data to and from Amazon RDS
AWS Database Migration Service
Minimize downtime during migrations, migrate
between different DB platforms, Schema
Conversion Tool
Amazon RDS Native Backup / Restore
Store your existing SQL Server backups ‘.bak’ files in
Amazon S3 and restore them on Amazon RDS
Microsoft SQL Server Database
Publishing Wizard
Export to T-SQL files, load using sqlcmd
1
2
3
AWS Marketplace
Third-party data import and export tools and
solutions
4

31. Database Migration

32. Which Option Is Right for You?
q Consider RDS first
q Focus on:
• Business value tasks
• High-level tuning tasks
• Schema optimization
q No in-house database expertise
q Need control over:
• DB instance & OS
• Backups, Replication
• Clustering
• sysadmin role
q Use options not in Amazon RDS
Amazon RDS for SQL Server SQL Server on Amazon EC2

33. Choose the Best Option for Your Needs

34. Choose the Best Option for Your Needs
ü Managed physical
infrastructure
ü Managed OS
installation
ü Managed scaling
ü OS-level control
ü Managed physical
infrastructure
ü Managed DB
installation and
backups
ü Managed OS and
patching
ü Managed high
availability and
scaling

35. Your Responsibility
v App optimization,
tuning
v Deployment
v Monitoring
v High availability
v Backups
v DB & OS patching
v App optimization,
tuning
v Deployment
v Monitoring

36. What we covered
q Well Architected SQL Server environments
q AWS Managed Services for Microsoft SQL Server
q Migrating Data to AWS
q Choosing the right model for your environment

37. How to get started
q Create an AWS Account and leverage the free tier
• 1 year of Amazon EC2 instance
• 1 year of Amazon RDS instance
q Discover the AWS Well Architected Framework
q Contact us and come meet us at AWS / partner events
q AWS and partners offer training and certification
Amazon
EC2
Amazon
RDS

38. Thank you!