diff --git a/dev/com.ibm.ws.jdbc_fat_sqlserver/fat/src/com/ibm/ws/jdbc/fat/sqlserver/SQLServerSSLTest.java b/dev/com.ibm.ws.jdbc_fat_sqlserver/fat/src/com/ibm/ws/jdbc/fat/sqlserver/SQLServerSSLTest.java
index bc3352d90731..943ac28c152c 100644
--- a/dev/com.ibm.ws.jdbc_fat_sqlserver/fat/src/com/ibm/ws/jdbc/fat/sqlserver/SQLServerSSLTest.java
+++ b/dev/com.ibm.ws.jdbc_fat_sqlserver/fat/src/com/ibm/ws/jdbc/fat/sqlserver/SQLServerSSLTest.java
@@ -40,7 +40,11 @@
 
 @Mode(FULL)
 @RunWith(FATRunner.class)
-@SkipIfSysProp(NETWORK_AWS) //TODO remove once we can update SSL image to 2019-CU28-ubuntu-20.04
+// TODO remove once we can update SSL image to 2019-CU28-ubuntu-20.04
+// Avoiding bug in SQLServer docker image https://github.com/microsoft/mssql-docker/issues/881
+// Which has logic that tightly couples the container kernel and host kernel
+// Today the kernel available on the remote docker host for AWS causes SQLServer to fail to start.
+@SkipIfSysProp(NETWORK_AWS)
 public class SQLServerSSLTest extends FATServletClient {
 
     public static final String APP_NAME = "sqlserversslfat";
diff --git a/dev/fattest.simplicity/src/componenttest/topology/database/container/DatabaseContainerFactory.java b/dev/fattest.simplicity/src/componenttest/topology/database/container/DatabaseContainerFactory.java
index 927860194cab..08ed154f677f 100644
--- a/dev/fattest.simplicity/src/componenttest/topology/database/container/DatabaseContainerFactory.java
+++ b/dev/fattest.simplicity/src/componenttest/topology/database/container/DatabaseContainerFactory.java
@@ -137,7 +137,8 @@ private static JdbcDatabaseContainer<?> initContainer(DatabaseContainerType dbCo
                     //Accept License agreement
                     db2.acceptLicense();
                     //Add startup timeout since DB2 tends to take longer than the default 3 minutes on build machines.
-                    db2.withStartupTimeout(getContainerTimeout(5, 15));
+					// TODO figure out if there is a way to create a 'fast-start' image that has the database already created. 
+                    db2.withStartupTimeout(getContainerTimeout(5, 25));
 
                     break;
                 case Derby: