Let’s take a closer look at the limitations of RDS SQL Server. Bobcares, as a part of our AWS Support Services offers solutions to every AWS query that comes our way.

What Is RDS SQL Server?

MS SQL Server deployments in the cloud are simple to set up, manage, and scale thanks to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. We can quickly and affordably deploy multiple editions of SQL Server (2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019), including Express, Web, Standard, and Enterprise, using Amazon RDS. Some of the benefits include:

1. Fully managed
2. Single click high availability
3. Auto-scaled storage
4. Automated backups
5. Upgrade and modernize
6. Ease of migration

Along with these benefits, AWS RDS for SQL Server has a few drawbacks. We’ll look at a few of those limitations in this article.

AWS RDS-SQL Server Limitations

• We can’t use some ports when we create a DB instance as it is reserved for Amazon RDS.
• The msdb database cannot import data using Amazon RDS for SQL Server.
• On a DB instance in a SQL Server Multi-AZ deployment, we are unable to rename databases.
• Data Quality Services and Master Data Services cannot execute from the same RDS service in AWS; instead, an EC2 must be launched and another server used to host the services.
• The maximum storage size for SQL Server DB instances is the following: General Purpose (SSD) storage – 16 TiB for all editions, Provisioned IOPS storage – 16 TiB for all editions, Magnetic storage – 1 TiB for all editions.

In addition to these limitations, We also analyze the limitations based on security, server-level permissions, features forbidden, and Restore and backup.

Security Limitations

The following server-level roles such as bulkadmin, dbcreator, diskadmin, securityadmin, serveradmin, and sysadmin aren’t available in Amazon RDS for SQL Server.

Server-Level Permissions Limitations

The server-level permissions such as ALTER ANY CREDENTIAL, ALTER ANY DATABASE, ALTER ANY EVENT NOTIFICATION, ALTER RESOURCES, ALTER SETTINGS, AUTHENTICATE SERVER, CONTROL_SERVER, CREATE DDL EVENT NOTIFICATION, CREATE ENDPOINT, CREATE TRACE EVENT NOTIFICATION, DROP ANY DATABASE, EXTERNAL ACCESS ASSEMBLY, SHUTDOWN, UNSAFE ASSEMBLY, ALTER ANY AVAILABILITY GROUP, and CREATE ANY AVAILABILITY GROUP aren’t available on RDS for SQL Server DB instances.

Features Forbidden Limitations

Amazon RDS doesn’t supports the Microsoft SQL Server features such as Backing up to Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, Buffer pool extension, Custom password policies, Data Quality Services, Database Log Shipping, Database snapshots, FILESTREAM support, File tables, Machine Learning and R Services, Maintenance plans, Performance Data Collector, Policy-Based Management, PolyBase, Replication, Resource Governor, Server-level triggers, Service Broker endpoints, Stretch database, T-SQL endpoints, and WCF Data Services. The feature like Distributed queries/linked servers has only limited support on Amazon RDS.

Restore And Backup Limitations

A snapshot from a database instance in one time zone cannot be restored to a database instance in a different time zone. So we must examine the queries and applications for the effects of the time zone change. This is done before we can restore a backup file from one time zone to another. An Amazon S3 bucket in a different AWS Region cannot be backed up to or restored from an Amazon RDS DB instance.

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Conclusion

Our Tech team describes the limitations of AWS RDS on SQL Server in this article. The limitations based on backup, security, and access are all taken into account.