Category: Best Practices

Introduction This blog post shows you how to back up, replicate, and restore the Microsoft SQL Server encryption key hierarchy across AWS Regions. This approach lets encrypted databases recover successfully during cross-region disaster recovery (DR) events on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Cross-region DR planning for SQL Server on Amazon EC2 focuses on database […]

In today’s hybrid IT landscape, many organizations are strategically moving their infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS) while maintaining certain on-premises services. Microsoft Exchange Server remains a critical communication platform for businesses and deploying it in AWS provides excellent opportunities to leverage cloud scalability and reliability. Whether you’re migrating an existing Exchange infrastructure or implementing […]

Enterprises worldwide rely on Microsoft Office for critical business operations. AWS makes it straightforward to deploy Microsoft Office on individual Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances using the Office LTSC Professional Plus or Office LTSC Standard from AWS Marketplace, as in the blog post How to Set Up Microsoft Office on Amazon EC2. This approach works well for […]

In this blog post, we will guide you through the process on performing a snapshot backup using native T-SQL based backup abilities and snapshot technology of Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP (FSxN). This method provide near-instant, consistent backups with negligible I/O, storage and compute capacity impact unlike traditional Microsoft SQL Server backups. Introduction Microsoft SQL […]

In this blog post, we will extend the analysis of the Optimize CPUs feature provided in a previous publication to other Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances suitable for deployment of Microsoft SQL Server workloads on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. Amazon EC2 now allows customers to modify an instance’s CPU options to […]

Introduction Today, we are announcing the general availability of the Hybrid Edition of AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (AWS Managed Microsoft AD). This new edition lets you extend your existing self-managed Active Directory (AD) domain to AWS Managed Microsoft AD while preserving your current identity and access infrastructure. AWS Managed Microsoft AD (Hybrid […]

Resilience testing has emerged as a critical practice for organizations seeking to build and maintain resilient cloud applications. As environments grow more complex, more comprehensive testing methods become necessary. Resilience testing principles can be applied to Windows workloads on AWS to create controlled experiments that test system behavior under stress. These experiments can help you […]

This blog post introduces a new AWS feature that enables point-in-time recovery for SQL Server using EBS snapshots. It offers a detailed walkthrough for creating VSS-integrated snapshots and restoring SQL Server databases using EBS snapshots to simplify database backups and automate point-in-time restore. Introduction Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently introduced support for restoring Microsoft SQL […]

September 15, 2025: AWS Private CA Connector for Active Directory now supports server-side LDAPS certificate enrollment for AWS Managed Microsoft AD domain controllers. To learn how to enable server-side LDAPS for your AWS Managed Microsoft AD directory using AWS Private CA Connector for Active Directory, please refer to our updated documentation. In this blog, we […]

Learn how HCLTech successfully helped a customer implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (D365 CE) on AWS cloud. To gain a deeper understanding into HCLTech’s consultative approach and the insights from this project, we spoke with Karthik Rajan and Anand K Patel, Solutions Architects at HCLTech. We explore key considerations including purchase models, licensing optimization, […]