RDS Database Options

Amazon RDS for SQL Server is a managed relational database service that runs MS-SQL Server in the AWS cloud. It automates common tasks like provisioning, backups, patching, and high availability.

WorkSpaces Manager (WSM) requires a SQL Server-compatible database for backend data storage. While the system supports both on-premises and Amazon RDS deployments, using Amazon RDS for SQL Server is recommended for most AWS-native deployments due to its ease of setup, automated backups, and managed maintenance features.

Use Case	RDS Edition	vCPU/RAM	Storage	High Availability
Small/Medium Deployment	SQL Server Web	2 vCPU 4 GB RAM	20 GB	No
Large Deployment	SQL Server Standard	2 vCPU 4 GB RAM	20+ GB	Yes (Multi-AZ)
Enterprise Environments	SQL Server Enterprise	2 vCPU 4 GB RAM	20+ GB	Yes (Multi-AZ)

Guidance Based on Deployment Size

• No HA Needed (Development/PoC or Small/Medium Deployments): For smaller environments or proof-of-concept deployments, the SQL Server Web Edition with 4 GB RAM and 20 GB of storage provides stable performance at a low cost (around $60/month). This setup does not offer high availability (HA), so it's not suitable for production-critical environments.

• Recommended for Production on Large Deployments: For most production estates, especially those managing a large number of WorkSpaces, it is strongly recommended to use SQL Server Standard Edition with Multi-AZ (HA) enabled. This ensures database failover and availability in case of an instance or zone failure. The estimated cost is around $290/month per instance, totaling $580/month for an HA pair.

• Enterprise Edition on Large Deployments: WorkSpaces Manager is compatible with SQL Server Enterprise Edition, though it is rarely necessary. The Enterprise tier provides features that typically go unused with WSM, making the cost unjustifiable for most customers unless they are already licensed or require Enterprise features for other integrated workloads.

Security & Networking Considerations

• Ensure the RDS instance is in a private subnet, with appropriate security group rules to allow access only from the WorkSpaces Manager server.

• Enable automatic backups, Multi-AZ, and encryption for production environments.

• SQL authentication is supported; ensure credentials are securely stored and rotated as per your internal policy.

Multi-Region RDS Replication for WorkSpaces Manager

If an organization spans multiple AWS regions or needs a disaster recovery (DR) strategy, Amazon RDS Read Replicas can be used to replicate the WorkSpaces Manager database across regions.

Amazon RDS supports cross-region read replicas for SQL Server Standard and Enterprise editions only. This setup creates a read-only copy of the primary RDS instance in a different AWS region. Changes made to the primary database are asynchronously replicated to the replica using SQL Server transactional replication.

For WorkSpaces Manager, this configuration can support:

• Disaster Recovery (DR) readiness

• Cross-region reporting

• Read-only dashboards in a secondary region

However, keep in mind that read replicas are not writable, and WorkSpaces Manager expects to connect to a writable database for core operations. This means replicas are primarily useful for DR and analytics, not for active-active regional usage.