Microsoft Workloads on AWS

Streamline Identity Management with AWS Directory Service and One Identity Active Roles

In this blog post we will explore several scenarios where combining AWS Managed Microsoft AD and Active Roles can streamline and accelerate your AWS workload implementations. Many organizations rely on Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to manage identities and access controls, and extending AD infrastructure to the cloud is a common goal. This need often arises […]

Leverage a one-way trust with Amazon WorkSpaces for cross-domain usage

In this blog, I will be covering how to set up a resource domain configuration for Amazon WorkSpaces using a one-way trust in Microsoft Active Directory. With this configuration you will deploy your Amazon WorkSpaces compute resources in one domain, while leveraging users from your trusted domain to log onto the Workspace. This is useful […]

Collecting platform and billing details for Microsoft licensing on AWS

Collecting platform and billing details for Microsoft licensing on AWS

In this blog post, we will cover how to retrieve billing info manually for Microsoft workloads running in your Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounts. This is helpful when reviewing your existing Microsoft licensing and for long-term cost modeling with your Microsoft license investment in your AWS environment. Introduction When you’re running Microsoft Windows workloads on […]

New research shows AWS is the cloud provider of choice for SQL Server

A 2024 IDC Infobrief – Running SQL Server Workloads in the Cloud – reports that a clear majority of Microsoft SQL Server users chose AWS as their primary cloud provider when polled. In fact, data shows AWS is the top cloud provider of choice (52%) – more than the next six cloud providers combined. Figure […]

Automate SQL Server deployments with AWS Launch Wizard APIs

In this blog post, I will share details on the new AWS Launch Wizard application programming interface (APIs) that allow programmatic deployment for Microsoft SQL Server workloads. This new API release helps you integrate AWS Launch Wizard with existing deployment tools. Introduction The AWS Launch Wizard service guides customers through the sizing, configuration, and deployment […]

Govern Microsoft workloads using the myApplications dashboard on AWS

In this blog post, I will show you how to use the myApplications dashboard in the AWS Management Console. Using a sample .NET application, I will demonstrate how you can manage costs, monitor, and optimize your Microsoft workloads with this new dashboard. Introduction Assume you are a web application owner and it’s your team’s responsibility […]

Simplifying Active Directory domain join with AWS Systems Manager

In this blog post, I will demonstrate a solution for managing the Active Directory domain membership for a dynamic fleet of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Windows instances using AWS Systems Manager Automation. Using Systems Manager Automation, you can dynamically automate domain join and unjoin activities with Microsoft Active Directory (AD) for your Amazon […]

Use AWS Systems Manager to enable CloudWatch memory metrics for Windows Server Amazon EC2 instances

In this blog post, we will show how to reduce the administrative burden of enabling Amazon CloudWatch memory metric monitoring on Windows Server EC2 instances using AWS Systems Manager automation. Once enabled, we will show how memory monitoring benefits downstream services like AWS Compute Optimizer to provide accurate cost savings recommendations. Monitoring is an important […]

How to bring existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses to Amazon EC2

Disclaimer: The use of Microsoft software is subject to Microsoft’s terms. When using Microsoft Software as a customer of AWS, you are fully responsible for complying with Microsoft licensing terms. This information is only provided as a guide for your convenience, and you should not rely on its descriptions nor consider it any form of […]

Containerize SQL Server workloads with Amazon EKS and DxOperator for Kubernetes

In this blog post, we will demonstrate a simple and effective way to deploy Microsoft SQL Server Always On Availability Group (AG) containers in Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) with DxOperator – SQL Server Operator for Kubernetes. Deploying database workloads in Kubernetes (K8s) is a growing trend. The Cloud Native Foundation’s 2022 Survey showed […]