Dell recommends Windows 8.

Amazon Courts Windows Admins

Susan Fogarty, Editor in Chief, IT Migration Zone | 12/12/2012 | 10 comments

Susan Fogarty
Amazon Web Services is making it easier for Windows administrators and developers to move to the cloud, rolling out support for the new server OS, applications, and management tools.

Just last week, the cloud provider announced the addition of PowerShell to the management options for its cloud. In the AWS blog, Tom Rizzo, general manager for the Windows team at Amazon, explained that because PowerShell was becoming the tool of choice to manage Windows environments, AWS wanted users to be able to leverage it to manage their cloud assets at Amazon, as well.

AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell provides more than 550 cmdlets that allow administrators to perform quick actions from the command line, and create automated scripts from within the PowerShell environment. (For more on cmdlets, see Microsoft's Powerful PowerShell 3.0.)

In November, AWS added support for Windows Server 2012 in addition to its existing Windows Server 2003 R2, 2008, and 2008 R2 offerings, according to a separate blog by Rizzo. Server 2012 includes the Internet Information Services (IIS) 8.0 web server, version 4.5 of the .NET framework, and the much-improved PowerShell 3.0.

An article in Ars Technica notes, "There are a number of things that Amazon has done with Windows 2012 that are sure to draw attention from companies and developers looking to ease into using Server 2012 or go big right away." The most important is Amazon's support for Server 2012 in Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon's service that automatically deploys and provisions applications in the AWS cloud.

The provider is also offering 31 different prebuilt virtual machine images of Server 2012, including some packaged with SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2, in 19 languages.

These efforts are sure to encourage IT departments running Windows to explore AWS's cloud services.

In an effort to woo Windows users, AWS began including Windows Server in its free usage tier in January 2012. The service includes 750 hours of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud "Micro Instance" usage (613 MB of memory and support for 32-bit and 64-bit platforms) per month, for up to a year.

Are you using servers in the cloud? Are you interested in Amazon Web Services? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
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Toby   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/19/2012 11:25:11 AM
Hybrid Cloud computing
My take is that this is to enable all those who are half in and half out (can you spell uncommitted) to the cloud services options and need to be able to manage both with ease. smart move. Given the ups and downs of Amazon recently this is the least they could offer.
anthony.nima   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/19/2012 4:42:38 AM
Re: About time
Exactly and that will definitely be a boost for technology and for the future of technology as well.
Trek   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/16/2012 10:48:21 PM
Re: About time
This probably has a great deal to do with Tom Rizzo, a former top project manager that was influential with Microsoft Office 365, leaving  to work with Amazon. 

Amazon's wants to interfere Microsoft Surface tablets competition with the Kindle and Microsoft wants to blunt Amazon's entry into the mobile market.  
Tuscany   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/16/2012 1:30:04 AM
Re: About time
@SaneIT   Great point, the new generation of sys admin will likely learn powershell and it will gain it's own momentum as a result.
SaneIT   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/14/2012 7:55:24 AM
Re: About time
Powershell isn't bad for creating scripts, it's probably easier once you know it inside and out.  I just came along too early I guess and I'm used to VBscript or Wscript and WMI.   There are some functions with a few MS products that can only be done through Powershell so I use it for that but we all have a tendency to use what we are familiar with and I guess that's why Amazon added a Powershell like interface.
Tuscany   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/14/2012 6:48:55 AM
Re: About time
@ anthony.nima   Thanks for the insight, good to know that if I need to I will be able to adjust easily to a powershell world.
anthony.nima   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/14/2012 4:25:45 AM
Re: About time
Tuscany: Im on Windows platform and for me its a very good and an easy operation. Looks perfect to me.
Tuscany   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/13/2012 10:53:34 PM
Re: About time
@SaneIT    I hear your point, MS has been pushing powershell for quite some time now, and since they are committed of course Admins would do well to use it.  I don't work in the windows world presently so it would be interesting to see which of these would work best for creating scripts.
Tuscany   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/13/2012 10:50:38 PM
AWS and MS2012: A Good Match
Very good move by MS to leverage the abilities of AWS coupled with the new WS 2012.    I don't think I can say we use servers in the Cloud in the sense that your blog suggests Susan, but certain kinds of large files transfers could also be seen in this light. 

And I will be surprised to learn that many others do but MS is positioning themselves for the day that Cloud based computing becomes commonplace.
SaneIT   Amazon Courts Windows Admins   12/13/2012 8:33:56 AM
About time
I'm surprised it took this long to emulate Windows server administration.  If you're trying to displace an industry leader you really need to look at why they are an industry leader. I can't say that having a Powershell in general will make a huge difference for me, I typically use it for server deployment or the first setup but don't have to mess around with it day to day.  I do create scripts that use the powershell but I could do most of that with WMI and VBscript or Wscript.


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