Options for the Microsoft SQL Server database engine - Amazon Relational Database Service
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Options for the Microsoft SQL Server database engine

In this section, you can find descriptions for options that are available for Amazon RDS instances running the Microsoft SQL Server DB engine. To enable these options, you add them to an option group, and then associate the option group with your DB instance. For more information, see Working with option groups.

If you're looking for optional features that aren't added through RDS option groups (such as SSL, Microsoft Windows Authentication, and Amazon S3 integration), see Additional features for Microsoft SQL Server on Amazon RDS.

Amazon RDS supports the following options for Microsoft SQL Server DB instances.

Option Option ID Engine editions

Linked Servers with Oracle OLEDB

OLEDB_ORACLE

SQL Server Enterprise Edition

SQL Server Standard Edition

Native backup and restore

SQLSERVER_BACKUP_RESTORE

SQL Server Enterprise Edition

SQL Server Standard Edition

SQL Server Web Edition

SQL Server Express Edition

Transparent Data Encryption

TRANSPARENT_DATA_ENCRYPTION (RDS console)

TDE (Amazon CLI and RDS API)

SQL Server 2016–2022 Enterprise Edition

SQL Server 2022 Standard Edition

SQL Server Audit

SQLSERVER_AUDIT

In RDS, starting with SQL Server 2016, all editions of SQL Server support server-level audits, and Enterprise Edition also supports database-level audits.

Starting with SQL Server SQL Server 2016 (13.x) SP1, all editions support both server-level and database-level audits.

For more information, see SQL Server Audit (database engine) in the SQL Server documentation.

SQL Server Analysis Services

SSAS

SQL Server Enterprise Edition

SQL Server Standard Edition

SQL Server Integration Services

SSIS

SQL Server Enterprise Edition

SQL Server Standard Edition

SQL Server Reporting Services

SSRS

SQL Server Enterprise Edition

SQL Server Standard Edition

Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator

MSDTC

In RDS, starting with SQL Server 2016, all editions of SQL Server support distributed transactions.

Listing the available options for SQL Server versions and editions

You can use the describe-option-group-options Amazon CLI command to list the available options for SQL Server versions and editions, and the settings for those options.

The following example shows the options and option settings for SQL Server 2019 Enterprise Edition. The --engine-name option is required.

aws rds describe-option-group-options --engine-name sqlserver-ee --major-engine-version 15.00

The output resembles the following:

{ "OptionGroupOptions": [ { "Name": "MSDTC", "Description": "Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator", "EngineName": "sqlserver-ee", "MajorEngineVersion": "15.00", "MinimumRequiredMinorEngineVersion": "4043.16.v1", "PortRequired": true, "DefaultPort": 5000, "OptionsDependedOn": [], "OptionsConflictsWith": [], "Persistent": false, "Permanent": false, "RequiresAutoMinorEngineVersionUpgrade": false, "VpcOnly": false, "OptionGroupOptionSettings": [ { "SettingName": "ENABLE_SNA_LU", "SettingDescription": "Enable support for SNA LU protocol", "DefaultValue": "true", "ApplyType": "DYNAMIC", "AllowedValues": "true,false", "IsModifiable": true, "IsRequired": false, "MinimumEngineVersionPerAllowedValue": [] }, ... { "Name": "TDE", "Description": "SQL Server - Transparent Data Encryption", "EngineName": "sqlserver-ee", "MajorEngineVersion": "15.00", "MinimumRequiredMinorEngineVersion": "4043.16.v1", "PortRequired": false, "OptionsDependedOn": [], "OptionsConflictsWith": [], "Persistent": true, "Permanent": false, "RequiresAutoMinorEngineVersionUpgrade": false, "VpcOnly": false, "OptionGroupOptionSettings": [] } ] }