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Reduce Microsoft SQL Server High Availability costs running on Amazon EC2

Microsoft Workloads on AWS Blog

This article explains how to reduce SQL Server High Availability costs on Amazon EC2 by up to 40% using the new EC2 High Availability for SQL Server feature with License Included editions.

  • New feature automatically detects passive/active SQL Server nodes and waives licensing on standby instances
  • Pay full SQL Server costs only for active node; passive node charged for EC2 compute and Windows Server only
  • Requires SQL Server Enterprise or Standard LI, SSM Agent 3.1.x+, and proper IAM permissions
  • Enable via EC2 console: select instances, Actions > Instance settings > Modify SQL High Availability settings
  • Supports Always On Availability Groups and Failover Cluster Instances with SQL Server 2017+
  • Passive instance must be same size or smaller than active instance in vCPUs
  • Only two-node clusters supported; multi-AZ within same region only

This feature simplifies cost optimization for SQL Server HA deployments on EC2 by automatically managing licensing based on node state.

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