RDS for Db2 licensing options

Amazon RDS for Db2 has one licensing option: Bring Your Own License (BYOL).

Bring Your Own License

In the BYOL model, you use your existing Db2 database licenses to deploy databases on Amazon RDS. Verify that you have the appropriate Db2 database license for the DB instance class and Db2 database edition that you want to run. You must also follow IBM policies for licensing IBM database software in the cloud computing environment.

In this model, you continue to use your active IBM support account, and you contact IBM directly for Db2 database service requests. If you have an AWS Support account with case support, you can contact AWS Support for Amazon RDS issues. Amazon Web Services and IBM have a multi-vendor support process for cases that require assistance from both organizations.

Amazon RDS supports the BYOL model for Db2 Standard Edition and Db2 Advanced Edition.

IBM IDs

In the BYOL model, you need your IBM Customer ID and your IBM Site ID to create, modify, or restore RDS for Db2 DB instances. You must create a custom parameter group with your IBM Customer ID and your IBM Site ID before you create an RDS for Db2 DB instance. For more information, see Adding IBM IDs to a parameter group. You can run multiple RDS for Db2 DB instances with different IBM Customer IDs and IBM Site IDs in the same AWS account or AWS Region.

Adding IBM IDs to a parameter group

Because you can't modify default parameter groups, you must create a custom parameter group and then modify it to include the values for your IBM Customer ID and your IBM Site ID. For information about parameter groups, see Working with DB parameter groups in a DB instance.

Use the parameter settings in the following table.

These parameters are dynamic, which means that any changes to them take effect immediately and that you don't need to reboot the DB instance. If you don't want the changes to take effect immediately, you can set ApplyMethod to pending-reboot and schedule these changes to be made during a maintenance window.

You can create and modify a custom parameter group by using the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the Amazon RDS API.

Now you are ready to create a DB instance and attach the custom parameter group to the DB instance. For more information, see Creating an Amazon RDS DB instance and Associating a DB parameter group with a DB instance.

Integrating with AWS License Manager

To aid in monitoring RDS for Db2 license usage in the BYOL model, AWS License Manager integrates with RDS for Db2. License Manager supports tracking of RDS for Db2 engine editions based on virtual CPUs (vCPUs). You can also use License Manager with AWS Organizations to manage all of your organizational accounts centrally.

The following table shows the product information filters for RDS for Db2.

To track license usage of your RDS for Db2 DB instances, you can create a self-managed license. In this case, RDS for Db2 resources that match the product information filter are automatically associated with the self-managed license. Discovery of RDS for Db2 DB instances can take up to 24 hours.

aws license-manager create-license-configuration --cli-input-json file://rds-db2-se.json

{
    "Name": "rds-db2-se",
    "Description": "RDS Db2 Standard Edition",
    "LicenseCountingType": "vCPU",
    "LicenseCountHardLimit": false,
    "ProductInformationList": [
        {
            "ResourceType": "RDS",
            "ProductInformationFilterList": [
                {
                    "ProductInformationFilterName": "Engine Edition",
                    "ProductInformationFilterValue": ["db2-se"],
                    "ProductInformationFilterComparator": "EQUALS"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}