Amazon RDS for SQL Server – Native Backup / Restore Support for Amazon S3

Regular readers of my articles know that I am a big fan of the Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) . As a managed database service, it takes care of the more routine aspects of configuration, operation, and scalability of a relational database.

We’ve released support for SQL Server in 2012. Continuing our effort to add features that included support for SSL , major version updates , transparent data encryption , enhanced surveillance and Multi-AZ , we’ve now added Backup / Restore support for Native Servers.

Native SQL Server backups include all database objects: tables, indexes, stored procedures, and triggers. These backups are commonly used to migrate databases between different instances of SQL Server running in-place or in the cloud. They can be used for data ingestion, fault recovery, and so on. Native backups also simplify the process of importing data and schemas from local instances of SQL Server, and make it easier to understand and use with SQL Server DBAs.

Support for Native Backup / Restore

You can now make SQL Server database backups native to your RDS instances and store them in an Amazon S3 bucket. These backups can be restored to a local copy of SQL Server or to another instance of SQL Server from RDS. You can also copy the backups from your local databases to S3, and then restore them to an RDS SQL Server instance. Native Backup / Restore for SQL Server with Amazon S3 also supports backup encryption using AWS Key Management Service (KMS) in all editions of SQL Server. Storing and transferring backups in and out of AWS through S3 provides another option for disaster recovery.

You can enable this feature by adding the SQL_SERVER_BACKUP_RESTORE option to an option group and associating the option group with your SQL Server RDS instance. This option must also be configured with your S3 bucket information and can include a KMS key to encrypt the backups.

Start by finding the desired option group:

Then add the SQL_SERVER_BACKUP_RESTORE option, specify (or create) an IAM function to allow RDS to access S3, point to a bucket, and (if you want to) specify and configure encryption:

• Rds_backup_database  – Backs up a single database to an S3 bucket.
• Rds_restore_database – Restores a single S3 database.
• Rds_task_status  – Runs the backup and restores tasks.
• Rds_cancel_task  – Cancels a running backup or restore job.

To learn more, take a look at Importing and Exporting SQL Server Data .

Already available

SQL Server Native Backup / Restore is now available in the Eastern United States (Northern Virginia), Western (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), Europe (Frankfurt), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific ), Asia-Pacific (Singapore), Asia-Pacific (Mumbai), and South America (Brazil). There are no additional costs to use this feature with Amazon RDS for SQL Server, but usage of Amazon S3 storage will be charged at regular rates.

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