Updated Microsoft SQL Server Offerings

As you might know, you can use official Windows AMIs (Amazon Machine Images) to launch Amazon EC2 instances with Microsoft SQL Server, inside or outside a VPC (Virtual Private Cloud).

Many customers are taking advantage of this possibility to run different types of workloads on the AWS Cloud. After listening to customer feedback (as we always like to do) and feature requests, today we’re happy to announce some updates to our Microsoft SQL Server offerings. Here they are.

1. Support for Additional Instance Types
   You can now launch Microsoft SQL Server on m1.small (1 ECU, 1.7 GB RAM) and m1.medium (2 ECU, 3.75 GB RAM) instance types. Since we have several instance types, you might also want to take a look at the details.
2. Support for Microsoft SQL Server Web Edition
   For customers who run web-facing workloads with Microsoft SQL Server software, we are introducing support for Microsoft SQL Server Web Edition, which brings together affordability, scalability, and manageability in a single offering. SQL Server Web will be supported across all Amazon EC2 instance types, all AWS regions, and On-Demand and Reserved Instance offerings.
3. Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2012
   Last, but definitively not least, we now support Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Amazon EC2.
   Customers now have immediate access to Amazon published (official) AMIs for:

   SQL Server 2012 Express (AMI catalog entry)
   SQL Server 2012 Web Edition (AMI catalog entry)
   SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition (AMI catalog entry)

   You can use Microsoft’s SQL Server Comparison Chart to learn more about the features available to you in each edition.

You can locate the new SQL Server 2012 AMIs by searching for the string “SQL_2012” (don’t forget the underscore) in the AMI list within the AWS Management Console:

Let us know how you plan to take advantage of these new features!

—
Simone (@simon)