# AWS RDS

Each Octopus Server node stores project, environment, and deployment-related data in a shared Microsoft SQL Server Database. Since this database is shared, it's important that the database server is also highly available. To host the Octopus SQL database in AWS, there are two options to consider:

- [SQL Server on EC2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sql-server-ec2/latest/userguide/sql-server-on-ec2-overview.html) -  To run SQL Server on a VM, please refer to our [self-managed SQL Server guide](/docs/installation/sql-database/self-managed-sql-server).
- [AWS RDS for SQL Server](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/sqlserver/)

## High Availability

The database is a critical component of Octopus Deploy.  If the database is lost or destroyed all your configuration will be lost with it.  We highly recommend leveraging a combination of backups and SQL Server's high availability functionality.  

We recommend using [Multi-AZ](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/features/multi-az/) with RDS to ensure the resilience and availability of your Octopus database. This will ensure that your data is replicated across multiple availability zones (Multi-AZ) within your region. In the event of a failure of the primary zone, Multi-AZ automatically switches to the secondary zone.  Multi-AZ supports SQL Server Database Mirroring (DBM) or Always On Availability Groups (AG), refer to to [Multi-AZ deployments for Amazon RDS for Microsoft SQL Server](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_SQLServerMultiAZ.html) for more details.

## Disaster Recovery

Amazon provides [several mechanisms](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/dr-standard-edition-amazon-rds/introduction.html) for Disaster Recovery (DR) should an entire region fail.  We recommend reviewing the [DR solution matrix](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/dr-standard-edition-amazon-rds/dr-matrix.html) to determine which method best suits your organizations needs.