Introducing support for Windows Server 2008 R2 on Amazon EC2

Posted on: Mar 16, 2011

We are pleased to announce that we have added support for Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server Standard 2008 R2. Windows Server 2008 R2 includes many exciting new features, such as support for IIS 7.5, additional Active Directory features, new management tools, and performance improvements when deployed on Amazon EC2. Customers can now also purchase both 1 year and 3 year Reserved Instances from Amazon EC2 with Windows and SQL Server as well. A few details about this release:

  • You can now launch instances of Windows Server 2008 R2 in four different flavors: Core, Base, IIS and SQL Server Express, and SQL Server Standard.
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 is supported in every region and in most 64-bit instance types, excluding t1.micro and HPC families.
  • Running Windows Server 2008 R2 within Amazon VPC will not be supported at launch, but support will be added shortly.
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 has regional language support.
  • Pricing for Windows Server 2008 R2 remains the same as that of using previous versions of Windows on Amazon EC2.
  • Reserved Instances and Spot Instances are available for running Windows 2008 R2.
  • Additional AMIs and content can be found in the AMI Catalog, the Windows .NET Development Center, and the Microsoft Solution Provider Page.

For more information and to get started, please go to http://aws.amazon.com/windows/.