Amazon Lightsail vs Amazon RDS

Question

I'm wondering can we setup SQL Server inside Amazon Lightsail? So I don't need to purchase Amazon RDS Plan. What's the difference if I prefer Amazon RDS as my database instance?

I want to build simple Point of Sales web with node.js and there are only about 10 users which use it.

Euphuism

Any particular reason you've tagged mysql? – Ozonosphere

Oh, yah I'm still not sure will use MySql or MSsql @DaleBurrell – Euphuism

Use neither MySQL nor SQL Server, Postgres is much better! :P – Remanence

Answer 1

You can actually have your database hosted a couple of different ways with Lightsail.

Lightsail has a managed database option that is built on top of RDS, so if you don't want to have to install and manage MySQL you can just use the managed offering. It will likely be more expensive than self-hosting, but comes with the benefit of not having to manage the underlying system, optional one-click high availability mode, and automatic backups. Today the managed service only supports MySQL - but we've announced that we're adding Postgres shortly.

If you'd rather pay a little less, you can (as stated above) install just about anything you want into a Lightsail instance. So you could provision a Lightsail instance and install MySQL (or Postgres or Mariadb or whatever).

Now if you want to run MSSQL, there isn't a managed offering, but there is a blue print for SQL express on Windows server available as well.

Cuspidor

What is the difference between the Lightsail managed solution and the AWS RDS managed solution? Are they the same in terms of e.g., costs? – Chimere

@AdiSarid I don't see any particular difference between Lightsail Database and AWS RDS EXCEPT that you will have only 2 options: MySQL and PostgresSQL. About costs, I think AWS RDS is a little cheaper than Ligntsail. – Maid

Answer 2

You can install whatever you want on Amazon Lightsail, as long as it is supported by the operating system. Lightsail is just an environment to launch virtual machines.

Amazon RDS is a managed database service, which means AWS takes care of many things you need to do manually otherwise. With RDS you get managed backups, easy on-demand snapshots, automatic patching, the possibility to scale up and down in a simple way, and advanced monitoring, performance metrics, and alerts. You also get a nice API to control your SQL Server/MySQL instance.

Cestoid

Lightsail also has a managed database service which is based on Lightsail, so this answer isn't completely accurate. – Cuspidor

The OP was about SQL Server, which is not supported as a managed database on Lightsail. My answer is about the difference between using RDS for SQL Server or SQL Server on Lightsail – Cestoid

Answer 3

I see a Lightsail managed DB as an inferior option to RDS. Their logging system starts from the top so it is close to useless, so you can only take advantage of backups and snapshots. Also, the free tier of Lightsail only lasts for 3 months, and then you pay 15 USD monthly for 1GB in RAM and 2 vCPU. The free tier of Amazon RDS also gives you 1GB in RAM and 2 vCPU for 1 year, but with much better features and more future-proof.

To connect RDS with Lightsail you can follow these instructions from the AWS blog. The important bit is modifying the inbound configuration of the VPC security to allow Lightsail IPs.

So, based on this, this is how we use databases with lightsail:

• We install Postgres or MySQL directly on our dev or testing Lightsail instances, those don't need backups and can be recreated every build, so no need for an extra service or cost. You can SSH into your instance for debugging and monitoring.
• We use RDS for production and maybe staging, since this will provides us with backups, good monitoring, etc.
• We avoid Lightsail DBs because their logging and monitoring is close to useless and costs the same as RDS.

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