The Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) now supports the latest version of Microsoft’s server OS.
Windows Server 2016 was made generally available earlier in the month. Microsoft referred to it as a new phase of its hybrid cloud vision. It includes several key enhancements over previous releases. These include built-in support of Docker and Windows containers as well as a small-footprint deployment option called “Nano Server”.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Wednesday’s announcement, stated that EC2 now supports the Windows Server 2016 Nano Server as well as Windows Server 2016 with containers configurations.
It also supports Windows Server 2016 Datacenter with Desktop Experience and Windows Server 2016 Datacenter.
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), which are used to create these versions, are available in all EC2 instances types and all AWS regions, according to the company.
AWS plans to support Windows containers in its Amazon EC2 Container Service by the end of the year.
AWS announced that Windows Server 2016 can be run on Amazon EC2 to combine the performance, scale, and elasticity of AWS with powerful new capabilities in the newest version Windows Server.
Jeff Barr, AWS evangelist, noted in a blog posting that Windows Server 2016 requires at least 2GB of memory. He also said that Windows Server 2016 is subject to standard EC2 pricing.
AWS also notes some other important caveats that customers should be aware of in this FAQ. Nano Server is a different use of the EC2 console.
Nano Server supports Get Instance Screenshot, System Log and System Log views. However, Nano Server is headless so Connect via RDP is not supported. Instead, users can manage a Nano Server instance using PowerShell remote, PowerShell CIM sessions via WinRM or Windows Remote Management.
According to the FAQ, a new Simple Systems Management agent (SSM), is available in the Windows Server 2016 AMIs. It replaces the older EC2Config service.
Windows Server 2016 and Nano Server AMIs now support an all-new SSM agent. This replaces functionality that was previously provided by EC2Config, thereby eliminating the need to use EC2Config. These enhancements allow SSM agent to support a variety of advanced settings and launch time configurations.