Explore the benefits of running Microsoft SQL Server on Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) in this 56-minute conference talk from PASS Data Community Summit. Discover how RDS automates database administration tasks, offers high availability, and provides performance monitoring for SQL Server workloads. Learn about key features that simplify cloud deployment and operation, including automated backups, manual snapshots, native backups, and high availability options. Compare fully managed RDS deployments with self-managed SQL Server on Amazon EC2. Gain insights into performance optimization, compute instance types, storage options, and Active Directory integration. Examine new features like SQL Server Analysis Services and replication service master key management. Understand how to leverage CloudWatch metrics and enhanced monitoring for effective database management in the AWS cloud environment.