Now Available – SQL Server Enterprise Edition AMI for EC2

You can now launch SQL Server Enterprise Edition on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) using a new, pre-configured AMI (Amazon Machine Image).

This edition of SQL Server offers some new and unique features including:

• High Availability – You can configure a primary database and up to four active, readable secondary databases into an Always-On availability group.
• Self-Service Business Intelligence – You can use Power View to interactively explore and visualize your data.
• Data Quality Services – You can use organizational and third-party reference data to profile, cleanse, and match your own data.
• Online Changes – You can restore files and file groups, alter schemas, and make indexing changes while your database remains online.

This edition of SQL Server is also more scalable. In contrast to the Standard Edition of SQL Server which maxes out at 16 cores and 128 GiB of memory, the Enterprise Edition is able to take advantage of the 32 cores and 244 GiB of memory provided by the r3.8xlarge instance.

You can run this new AMI on r3.x2large, r3.4xlarge, and r3.8xlarge instances in the US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) regions (visit the AWS Marketplace for more information):

• Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition 2012
• Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition 2014

You can run the AMI On-Demand or you can purchase an EC2 Reserved Instance with a one or three year term.

— Jeff;