{"id":728,"date":"2019-04-03T15:39:18","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T20:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/?p=728"},"modified":"2019-04-03T15:46:25","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T20:46:25","slug":"microsoft-sql-server-on-amazon-rds-in-a-nutshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/microsoft-sql-server-on-amazon-rds-in-a-nutshell\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft SQL Server on Amazon RDS in a Nutshell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As defined by Amazon, Amazon Relational Database Service\n(Amazon RDS) makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database\nin the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while\nautomating time-consuming administration tasks such as hardware provisioning,\ndatabase setup, patching and backups. It frees you to focus on your\napplications so you can give them the fast performance, high availability,\nsecurity and compatibility they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RDS is also referred to as a Database as a Service\n(DbaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS) not to be confused with Infrastructure\nas a Service (IaaS) which we\u2019ll discuss in the next paragraph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DbaaS\nvs. IaaS<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n DbaaS\n <\/td>\n IaaS\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n You can choose any DB platform such as\n Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB\n <\/td>\n You create a Virtual Machine and install\n OS and DB platform such as SQL Server\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n DbaaS takes care of backups, High\n Availability, Patching, OS, underlying hardware\n <\/td>\n Iaas will only take care of the VM host\n layer and it\u2019s hardware. You will need to manage patching, HA, security, etc.\n This is essentially like an on premise server.\n <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

Being an Operational DBA, there are a few tasks that RDS\nwill take over freeing up time for the DBA to focus on other things. Some of\nthose tasks include the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Backups: RDS will continuously take backups\nand allow point in time restore capabilities. We no longer have to worry about\ndisk space or archiving backups to another location.<\/li>
  • HA: RDS can automatically setup mirroring to\nanother data center which allows for redundancy of databases.<\/li>
  • Patching: RDS will automatically patch your\nSQL Server based on a maintenance window defined by you.<\/li>
  • Add Resources such as CPU\/Memory: RDS can\nincrease CPU or Memory on demand as opposed to managing an on premise where the\nserver might need downtime and you would have to orchestrate the change with\nServer Administrators.<\/li>
  • Upgrade: With a push of a button you can\nautomatically upgrade SQL Server and easily roll back if necessary.<\/li>
  • Monitoring: Instead of buying a third party\nmonitoring tool and running through the setup RDS provides a service called\nCloudWatch that can easily tap into SQL Server and alert when things go wrong.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Wow! All of these items make managing a SQL Server much\neasier for a DBA right? Do you even need a DBA if you\u2019re running RDS? Of course\nyou do! While it does make some tasks easier for a DBA, RDS will not do the\nfollowing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    • Write queries, tune queries, test queries:\nRDS has no knowledge about the data in each DB. Only a DBA knows the\napplication and business processes to write and tune queries.<\/li>
    • Manage DB security, change control,\nconfiguration settings: Only a DBA familiar with all of the procedures of his\/her\ncompany can really make sure the environment is secure, that all changes are\nbeing documented, and that a specific configuration applies to what the\ndatabases are supposed to do.<\/li>
    • Tune indexes or maintenance: Again, only the\nDBA knows what databases might need indexes or aren\u2019t using specific indexes.\nYou also know when to run maintenance procedures.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      Now that we\u2019ve discussed some of the pros and cons, why\ndo businesses use DbaaS?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The speed of provisioning increases business value\nbecause instead of waiting weeks to bring a server online including purchasing\nsoftware, servers, licenses, managing resources, etc. you can click a few\nbuttons in the Amazon console and have a fresh SQL Server online in a matter of\nminutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The automation of regular tasks means there\u2019s less\npossibility of human mistake and less hours spent by the admins patching and\nmanaging certain parts of the servers, which means no more late nights.\nEmployees can now spend more time query tuning, deploying new functionality,\nand making sure the performance is the best. All of this leads to increased\nrevenue for the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      As defined by Amazon, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while automating time-consuming administration tasks such as hardware provisioning, database setup, patching and backups. It frees you to focus on your applications so you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,131],"tags":[134,130,133,132],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aws","category-rds","tag-amazon","tag-aws","tag-rds","tag-sql-server"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlfreelancer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}