Amazon Web Services provides a number of resources to help you get started with Amazon EC2 for Microsoft Windows Server. Read further to learn more about Amazon Machine Images with pre-packaged software, tools to help you develop, deploy and manage applications, documentation of all the technical details, whitepapers with step by step guides and reference architectures, AWS Partners who can help build your solution, as well as how to bring your own Microsoft licenses to the AWS cloud.
AWS Diagnostics for Microsoft Windows Server is an easy to use tool that you can run on your EC2 Windows Server instances to collect log files, proactively look for possible areas of concern, and troubleshoot.
A directory of paid Amazon Machine Images with pre-packaged Microsoft software that you can run on EC2.
AWS partners with companies that offer a variety of services, software, and solutions on the AWS cloud via the Amazon Partner Network (APN). The APN includes Consulting Partners, which are professional services firms that help you design, architect, build, migrate, and manage your workloads and applications on AWS, as well as Technology Partners, which provide software solutions that are either hosted on, or integrated with the AWS platform.
AWS provides thorough documentation for its services, including EC2 for Windows and RDS for SQL Server. Here are some selections to get you started.
- Getting Started with Amazon EC2 Windows Instances
- Amazon EC2 Basic Infrastructure for Windows
- Differences between Windows Server and an Amazon EC2 Windows Instance
- Designing Your Applications to Run on Amazon EC2 Windows Instances
- Getting Started with AWS: Hosting a .NET Web App
- Configuration Automation with Amazon EC2 Simple Systems Manager
You have options for licensing Microsoft software on AWS. By using license included instances, such as an AWS provided Amazon Machine Image (AMI), you can acquire new licenses for Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server, and pay as you go with no long term commitment. You can also bring your own license (BYOL) by using Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts or Licence Mobility through Software Assurance.
Amazon Web Services provides a range of tools that you can use to develop, deploy and manage your Windows Server-based applications and workloads in the AWS cloud.
AWS Quick Start reference deployments help you easily launch, configure, and run key enterprise workloads on AWS, following AWS best practices for security and availability.
These whitepapers cover implementation of Microsoft software-based solutions on AWS and many also include step-by-step reference implementation guides, sample code, and CloudFormation templates to help automate deployment.
