Announcing Managed Microsoft Active Directory in the AWS Cloud
AWS Directory Service now lets you run a Microsoft Active Directory (AD) as a managed service. AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (Enterprise Edition), also referred to as Microsoft AD, is powered by Windows Server 2012 R2. When you select and launch this directory type, it is created as a highly available pair of domain controllers connected to your virtual private cloud (VPC). The domain controllers run in different Availability Zones in a region of your choice. Host monitoring and recovery, data replication, snapshots, and software updates are automatically configured and managed for you.
Microsoft AD enables you to run directory-aware workloads in the AWS cloud, including Microsoft SharePoint, custom .NET and SQL Server-based applications. You can also configure a trust relationship between Microsoft AD in the AWS cloud, and your existing on-premises Microsoft Active Directory, providing users and groups with access to resources in either domain, using single sign-on (SSO).
AWS Directory Service makes it easy to setup and run directories in the AWS cloud, or connect your AWS resources with an existing on-premises Microsoft Active Directory. Once your directory is created, you can use it to manage users and groups, provide single sign-on to applications and services, create and apply group policy, domain join Amazon EC2 Linux and Windows instances, as well as simplify the deployment and management of cloud-based Linux and Microsoft Windows workloads.
To learn more you can visit the AWS Directory Service documentation pages. If you are ready to get started, you can try the service as part of our free trial, which provides you 750 hours of free Directory Service usage, which is enough to continuously run a single directory for a month.