Optimizing Your SQL Server Licenses with AWS Compute Optimizer

 In this article, we will discuss how to leverage AWS Compute Optimizer to get actionable recommendations for optimizing your SQL Server licenses.

AWS Compute Optimizer makes it easy to identify savings opportunities by reviewing the SQL Server features you are using and identifying instances where you can downgrade your SQL licenses from Enterprise Edition to Standard Edition. You can select your instances in Compute Optimizer and authenticate CloudWatch Application Insights with your SQL Server database credentials.

CloudWatch Application Insights will analyze whether your workload is using Enterprise Edition-specific features that are not supported in Standard Edition. If no Enterprise Edition-specific features are used, Compute Optimizer will recommend downgrading to Standard Edition to save on licensing costs.

To illustrate, the price difference between Enterprise and Standard Edition can be as high as 73%, indicating significant potential savings.

Steps to Optimize SQL Server Licenses

Here are the steps to optimize your SQL Server licenses using AWS Compute Optimizer:

1. Enable Compute Optimizer Service: If you haven't already, navigate to Compute Optimizer from the AWS console and click the "Get Started" button. Review the opt-in preferences and click "Opt-in." An IAM service-linked role will be created automatically in your account.

2. Set Up CloudWatch Application Insights: Enable CloudWatch Application Insights with your SQL account. You will need an SQL account with at least the rights to view server status and view definition.

3. Attach Instance Role: Attach an instance role with the required policies to your instances. These policies include Amazon SSM Managed Instance Core and CloudWatch Agent Server Managed Policies, as well as an inline policy to retrieve SQL credentials for Application Insights.

4. Onboard Your SQL Servers: From the Compute Optimizer console, click on the "Licensing" widget. You will see a list of your instances. Click on the instance you want to onboard. Enter your SQL Server credentials, confirm that the instance role and policies are attached, and click the "Enable Licensing Recommendations" button.

5. Review Recommendations: After 30 hours, you can review the recommendation report. If your instance is "Not Optimized," you will see a recommendation to downgrade your SQL Server Edition, the estimated monthly savings, and the percentage of savings opportunity.

Features Analyzed by Compute Optimizer

Compute Optimizer checks various SQL Server Enterprise Edition features, including:

• Instances that require 128 GB of memory for the buffer pool or have 48 vCPUs.
• Commonly used features such as availability groups, resource governors, and asynchronous read replicas.
• Less commonly used features such as non-uniform memory access and memory-optimized TempDB metadata.

Implementing Recommendations

Compute Optimizer provides a button to implement the recommendation, along with documentation on how to downgrade your SQL Server Edition.

By leveraging AWS Compute Optimizer, you can optimize your SQL Server licenses and save significant costs.

Additional Notes:

• The Compute Optimizer service is available at no additional cost with an AWS account.
• CloudWatch Application Insights charges based on the amount of data ingested and the number of active agents.
• Make sure you have the necessary permissions to access your SQL Server instances and configure CloudWatch Application Insights.

I hope this information is helpful! Please let me know if you have any other questions.

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