SQL Server 2016 reached end of support on July 14, 2026; SQL Server 2017 follows on October 12, 2027, and SQL Server 2014's last ESUs end in July 2027. The three realistic paths on AWS (a newer SQL Server on EC2 or RDS, Aurora PostgreSQL with Babelfish, or a full conversion with AWS Transform) and what each costs in licences and effort.
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RDS for SQL Server, License Included: AWS patches, backs up and fails over; the licence is in the hourly price. The default for most workloads.
EC2 with License Included: for features or configurations RDS does not offer, at the cost of running it yourself.
BYOL with License Mobility: needs active Software Assurance; without it, Microsoft's 2019 rules push you to dedicated hosts and older licence versions.
Check edition. Many databases on Enterprise only use Standard features. Downgrading edition during an upgrade is often the largest saving in the project.
AWS Transform, announced at re:Invent 2025, converts SQL Server schemas (2008 R2 through 2022) to Aurora PostgreSQL, updates the .NET data access code (Entity Framework 6.3 to 6.5 and EF Core), ports the application to modern .NET, and can move ASP.NET Web Forms to Blazor, then deploys to ECS or Linux EC2. AWS charges nothing extra for the transformation itself. It makes conversion far cheaper than it was. It does not make it free: expect to review every stored procedure it converts and to performance-test the result.
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As of October 25, 2026. Provided as is, for general information, and accurate to the best of our knowledge on the date shown. Not legal, compliance, tax, financial or other professional advice. Prices, limits and vendor services change; check current vendor documentation before relying on anything here. Terms of use.