Licenses topic can be quite complex. That’s why I have decided to write this short story to give you an overview of Microsoft licensing options on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Visual overview
If you don’t have any Microsoft license to import
You can use:
- Amazon RDS for Microsoft SQL Server
- Amazon EC2 instances (which are virtual machines) by using an AMI (Amazon Machine Image) with Windows Server or an AMI with Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server already pre-installed.
In the solutions above, AWS manages all the licenses and you don’t have to think about it (the price of the license is included in the price of the EC2 / RDS instance).
If you want to import existing licenses
You can use:
- EC2 instances with shared tenancy if you license has an option called “License mobility” (you can use an EC2 feature named VM Import/Export to import VM images to AWS)
- EC2 Dedicated host if you don’t have that “License mobility” option (a service named AWS License Manager can help you to manage the EC2 instances and your licenses)
Comparison grid
The end
The purpose of this story was to give you an easy to understand glimpse of Microsoft license options on AWS. If you are interested in that topic and want or need to dive deeper, I highly encourage you to take a look at the following resources below:
References
ESG White paper: AWS Microsoft Licensing Considerations
https://d1.awsstatic.com/psc-digital/2021/gc-500/esg-whitepaper/ESG-WP-AWS-Microsoft-Licensing-May-2021.pdf (where the grid comes from)
AWS Microsoft FAQ
https://aws.amazon.com/windows/faq
Microsoft Licensing on AWS
https://aws.amazon.com/windows/resources/licensing
