More enterprises are adopting cloud as their de facto hosting platform to harness the revolutionary power of cloud computing. Increasingly, they are moving their IT workloads from on-premises data centres to cloud to reap benefits that include lower costs and increase flexibility. For companies that rely on Windows Server but find it daunting to move those workloads to the cloud, AWS holds the key to an easy solution.
Microsoft SQL Server on Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the most popular and highly adopted cloud computing platforms by enterprises all over the world. Its robust, Well-Architected Framework (WAF) helps cloud architects build the most secure, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for their applications. Through this framework, AWS provides a consistent and methodological approach for customers to evaluate architectures, while providing guidance to implement scalable applications.
At Singtel, we help organisations accelerate their transition from on-premises Microsoft SQL Server workloads onto AWS easily, quickly and securely. By re-hosting or re-locating Microsoft SQL Server workloads onto AWS Relational Database Service (AWS RDS) or AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (AWS EC2), organisations can look forward to the following benefits:
Greater stability in operations and running of applications with AWS’s robust architecture. Instance clusters can also be automatically provisioned on-demand via AWS Auto Scaling Group (AWS ASG) and AWS Amazon Machine Image (AWS AMI).
Enhanced security and usability via AWS Identity Access Management (AWS IAM). Administration is seamless with Security Group and Network Access Control List (NACL). A physical firewall is no longer required between the application and the database server.
Improved reliability with up-to-date patches for underlying software. In addition, AWS integrates seamlessly with several utilities, partner services, and an extensive third-party software in the AWS Marketplace. Integration with a hybrid cloud setup is also available. The system on AWS is also highly scalable with AWS EC2 resizing to meet the needs of different peak periods. With the scalability of AWS Elastic Block Store (AWS EBS), resizing of storage to the EC2 can be performed on the fly, reducing downtime.
The robust AWS infrastructure enables faster and more reliable AWS EBS storage, providing significant improvements compared to on-premises data centres. AWS also offers a strong platform that enables administrators to make easy tweaks and performance improvements. For example, upgrading the CPU memory of a Microsoft SQL Server database instance and redefinition of AWS EBS storage to adopt different IO speeds can be done easily, on demand.
On-premises data centres lock customers down with limited chipset compute power and storage capacity. A technology refresh of an on-premises setup is a tedious process that incurs additional costs. Business operations and end-users may also experience disruptions when a technology refresh is not completed on time.
It can be challenging to control and manage the cost of on-premises data centres if organisations have already purchased an undersized or oversized server or storage. An undersized server affects operations leading to additional manpower and hardware cost on technology refresh, while an oversized server would result in cost inefficiency upfront. AWS enables cost optimisation by charging only on committed purchased resources like AWS EC2 instances, EBS CPU, memory and storage capacity.
Migrate your SQL Server workloads to AWS for the most secure and reliable cloud, at the lowest cost. With Microsoft SQL Server workloads on AWS, enterprises can reduce or eliminate capital-intensive investments in infrastructure hardware and software licenses, while harnessing the power of AWS cloud computing.
