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Licensing AWS SQL Server for Development databases

0

Hi,

I am new to AWS RDS and am investigating the licensing for SQL Server RDS for development databases.
On premise we can use the Developer Edition for SQL Server that prevents us to pay licensing costs for our development databases.
For production database we have the licensed Enterprise Edition.
Now I would like to use AWS RDS for SQL Server for the development databases.
However I can't find an option in the AWS Create database console where I can configure that the databases are development databases.
There is a template where I can choose between Production and dev/test but I don't think that that is the option.
Is it possible to have development databases in AWS RDS without having to pay licensing?
Or doesn't AWS RDS work like that? Should we always pay for all databases including development databases?

Thanks in advance.
Regards

Topics
Database
Tags
Amazon Relational Database Service
Language
English

asked 6 years ago1.7K views

5 Answers
1

Microsoft doesn't make SQL Server Developer Edition available under the Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA), which is how AWS is allowed to offer its License Included offering. The only free license that AWS is able to offer is Express Edition. Just one of Microsoft's looney licensing practices.

answered 6 years ago

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Accepted Answer

It has nothing to do with licensing, all it does is choose a set of defaults the Console uses. So, for example, if you say it is a production instance then the Console will default to Multi-AZ whereas it defaults to Single-AZ for development. You can still change all of these, it is just the defaults to make instance creation easier.

answered 6 years ago

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an update on this thread: Developer edition is now supported on RDS. see announcement below:

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2025/12/amazon-rds-sql-server-supports-developer-edition/

AWS

answered 10 months ago

  • Yoni Sade
    10 months ago

    I was hoping we would be able to change the instance edition from standard/enterprise to developer while restoring its RDS snapshot, but alas.

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Hi Hal,

Thanks for the reply.
That's too bad.
So the choice when creating a new RDS Instance between Production and Dev/Test Template is nothing but a tag?. It has nothing to do with the licensing. Am I right?

thanks

answered 6 years ago

0

Developer Edition is such a needed feature in RDS. I hope Amazon and Microsoft could work something out...

answered 3 years ago

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