Support AWS RDS SQL Server instances as backend DBs for AF

Can you define the items required for troubleshooting, that you can't obtain from a managed database?

You can obtain a lot of data from the managed servers (including message logs and metrics). Most companies lean toward managed databases to streamline teams.

Another customer requesting to use RDS is Biogen. As with many other customers, RDS is easier to maintain and far lower cost than running traditional SQL Server in VMs. Biogen would like OSIsoft official support for RDS.

Since the first release of Asset Framework v2.x in December of 2007, it has always supported only Microsoft SQL Server as the database backend. As such we have a very large investment both in software code and testing infrastructure to support this configuration. We have recently received some customer requests for Asset Framework to additionally support AWS RDS as the database backend, as evident by this User Voice idea. We have not tested Asset Framework with AWS RDS as the database backend and thus it is currently not a supported configuration. The product management team at OSIsoft continually evaluate customer requests and feedbacks. This idea will be assessed and prioritized along with all the other ideas for Asset Framework and if we decide to start work on this idea, we will adjust the User Voice status accordingly. Please continue to vote and provide detailed use cases to help us prioritize our backlog.

Key points • Cost - cost is a function of supportability, lean methodology, on demand usage and end to end automation. • Automation - our organisation requires our platforms to be “single click” deployments we can build on demand for testing and are representative of our production environment. • Support - consistent environments that are standard driven and IaC managed makes support significantly easier. We run a lean support team and need as much of the platform left for AWS • Agility - we need to be able to test, deploy and evaluate platform changes much more quickly than we currently can • In essence, we prefer our platforms to be self healing and light touch RDS is a known quantity and we don’t believe our request is unique. Support for RDS is well documented by AWS and we have provided some key points. We don’t believe any of the current limitations of RDS are requirements of the PI AF system but are open to a conversation on this. Our DBA advises that PI AF and PI Vision Databases are the last two remaining databases hosted on an EC2 instance of SQL Server. In the immediate timeframe, our pain point is around AF PIFD, and PI Vision SQL Server Databases. The BA Integrator and other SQL Server databases are not of concern at this stage. We would prefer to progress the support for AF Server and PI Vision in the first instance, and do not feel it necessary to wait for all SQL Server components of the PI System to be qualified. We are committed to working with OSIsoft and AWS to assist in the testing and qualification process.

is there any update on this ?

Just to have a rough cost estimate a) m5a.4xlarge (incl. SQL Server Ent) costs roughly 65 kUSD per Year 6 Servers = (2 x (test, prod, dev) = 390 KUSD per Year b) RDS = 10 KUSD per Year (x 6) = 60 KUSD per Year if Osisoft Supports RDS this would save about 330 KUSD per Year!

On behalf of the customer: Can this item be investigated again now that AWS offers a RDS custom? AWS RDS Custom may enable functions that may have prevented implementation before: https://aws.amazon.com/rds/custom/

Another customer requesting RDS is Regeneron. As with other customers, the lower cost of ownership and ease of deployment are very attractive. They also referenced RDS custom as being an enabler for RDS to now be used where it was previously not supportable.