Amazon adds SQL database and ASP.Net cloud computing services for Microsoft developers
May 9, 2012
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has extended its cloud computing service offerings aimed at Windows developers with the introduction of SQL database and ASP.Net application support as managed services.
Available now worldwide, the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for Microsoft SQL Server and ASP.Net support for AWS Elastic Beanstalk enable organisations to deploy SQL Server databases and ASP.Net applications onto Amazon’s cloud infrastructure using familiar Microsoft tools, without having to worry about management or adding extra resources if they need to scale up, the firm said.
"We’re excited to give Windows and ASP.Net developers new options for taking advantage of AWS to quickly deploy and easily manage their databases and applications in the cloud," said Amazon Web Services vice president Charlie Bell…
Amazon RDS currently supports SQL Server 2008 R2, but the firm plans to add support for the latest release, SQL Server 2012, later this year.
Two licensing models are available, one of which allows enterprise customers with volume licensing agreements already covering SQL Server to run deployments on Amazon RDS, while the "License Included" scheme pricing starts at $0.035 per hour and is inclusive of SQL Server software, hardware, and management capabilities.
As with many other Amazon products, RDS is available on a free usage tier for customers to try out before committing themselves, with up to 750 hours per month of Amazon RDS micro-instances with SQL Server Express Edition, 20GB of database storage and 10 million I/O requests per month.
AWS Elastic Beanstalk already provides developers with an easy on-ramp to deploying applications on Amazon’s cloud, automatically provisioning the resources and code stack needed to run the application, and this has now been extended to ASP.Net support.
Existing ASP.Net applications can be deployed with minimal code changes, according to Amazon, as Elastic Beanstalk builds on the standard IIS 7.5 software stack.
There is no additional charge for Elastic Beanstalk, and so customers pay only for the AWS resources needed to run their applications, the firm said.