# RDS Database Options

WorkSpaces Manager (WSM) requires a SQL Server-compatible database for backend data storage. While the system supports both VM Databases on EC2 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.

<table><thead><tr><th width="186">Use Case</th><th width="198">RDS Edition</th><th width="122">vCPU/RAM</th><th width="91">Storage</th><th width="137">High Availability</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Small/Medium Deployment</td><td>SQL Server Web</td><td><p>2 vCPU</p><p>4 GB RAM</p></td><td>20 GB</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Large Deployment</td><td>SQL Server Standard</td><td><p>2 vCPU</p><p>4 GB RAM</p></td><td>20+ GB</td><td>Yes (Multi-AZ)</td></tr><tr><td>Enterprise Environments</td><td>SQL Server Enterprise</td><td><p>2 vCPU</p><p>4 GB RAM</p></td><td>20+ GB</td><td>Yes (Multi-AZ)</td></tr></tbody></table>

**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. 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.
* **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.