Amazon RDS for Aurora vs Microsoft SQL Server: What are the differences?
Amazon RDS for Aurora and Microsoft SQL Server are two popular database management systems with several key differences.
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Performance: Amazon RDS for Aurora is designed to provide high performance and scalability, with the ability to handle millions of transactions per minute. It uses a distributed relational database architecture to achieve this, while Microsoft SQL Server is optimized for transactional workloads but may struggle with large-scale, high transaction environments.
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Data Replication: Aurora uses a unique storage engine that replicates six copies of data across three Availability Zones in a single region, ensuring high availability and durability. On the other hand, Microsoft SQL Server offers various replication options, such as transactional replication, merge replication, and peer-to-peer replication, but the configuration and management can be more complex.
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Database Engine: Aurora uses a custom-built MySQL-compatible database engine, which means it is fully compatible with MySQL applications and tools. In contrast, Microsoft SQL Server uses a different database engine, which may require some modifications to MySQL applications for migration.
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Pricing: Aurora's pricing model is based on a combination of database instance types and storage usage, with separate rates for read and write operations. Microsoft SQL Server, on the other hand, has a different pricing structure that includes licensing fees based on the number of cores and additional costs for features like high availability and data compression.
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Backup and Recovery: Aurora offers automated backup and recovery features, including continuous incremental backups and the ability to restore to any point in time within a five-minute window. Microsoft SQL Server also provides backup and recovery capabilities, but the configuration and management may require more manual intervention.
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Community Support: Aurora benefits from the large and active MySQL community, which provides a wealth of resources, tutorials, and documentation. Microsoft SQL Server also has a strong community support, but it may not be as extensive as the MySQL community.
In summary, Amazon RDS for Aurora offers high performance, data replication across Availability Zones, compatibility with MySQL applications, flexible pricing, automated backup and recovery, and a strong community support. On the other hand, Microsoft SQL Server provides optimization for transactional workloads, various replication options, a different pricing structure, backup and recovery capabilities, and a community support network.