AWS Expands Cross-Region Read Replica Support for Amazon RDS SQL Server

Amazon Web Services has expanded support for cross-region read replicas for Amazon RDS for SQL Server into 16 additional AWS regions, giving customers more options for high availability and geographic resilience. The feature allows organizations to asynchronously replicate data from a primary SQL Server instance to a read-only instance in another region, supporting disaster recovery planning and read-heavy workloads without deploying custom replication architectures. AWS aims to expand availability to help customers meet stricter business continuity and data access requirements.

Cross-region replication has become increasingly important as enterprises operate globally distributed applications and face tighter recovery time objectives. Customers can set up to 15 read replicas in the same region or a different region as a primary database. While SQL Server customers have historically relied on native tools or complex configurations for cross-region replication, managed support within RDS simplifies setup and ongoing operations. For database administrators and architects, the broader regional availability makes it easier to design resilient SQL Server architectures on AWS while maintaining managed service benefits and reducing operational overhead.

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Posted by AWS Editors on 01/12/2026