Question

I have created an Amazon EC2 Instance that provides Windows Server 2008 with SQL Sever 2008 pre-installed. Now in order to use the SQL Server for creating databases, or restoring backups of the databases that I have on my local machine, I need the “sa” password for SQL Server 2008.

I have tried using the following but with no luck:

1. sa
2. password
3. “blank password”
4. “same password as the admin password for my EC2 instance”

Could someone please guide me as to how to get started with using the Amazon EC2 Datacenter with respect to the “sa” password.

Thanks

Answer 1

On a fresh Amazon EC2 “small” instance, as of 2010-05-31, the SQL services are disabled by default.

Fix: Enable any service starting with “SQL”.

1. “Start..Administrator Tools..Services”.
2. Select every service starting with “SQL”, set the startup type to “Automatic”.
3. Start every service starting with “SQL”.
4. Some services will refuse to start, don’t worry about this.

Now, you can go back into “SQL Server Management Studio”, and everything will work nicely.

Update

2010-05-31. I tested the instructions above, with a fresh Amazon EC2 instance with SQL Server installed, and everything worked just as I described.

Update

2010-10-07. The real reason Amazon EC2 disables SQL Server, by default, on a small instance is that it doesn’t actually have enough RAM to run things properly. I’m not even sure why they installed it in the first place. From bitter experience, I’d recommend that you run MySQL, given the choice, as its faster and lighter, or upgrade to a decent sized instance.

Update

Another reason why SQL is disabled, by default:

I’m pretty sure they they want to avoid being “that” company that lets loose another
“code red” or “sql slammer” worm – @Dan Esparza