Release: Amazon EC2 on 2009-03-03

Windows in Europe

Amazon EC2 now supports the ability to launch Windows-based instances in the Eurpoean region.

For more information, refer to the Amazon EC2 Product Page or the Amazon EC2 Developer Guide.

ec2-migrate-image

Amazon EC2 has a new command-line tool to help migrate AMIs from the US region to the European region.

For more information, refer to the Amazon EC2 Developer Guide.

New AMIs in non-English languages/p>

Amazon EC2 now provides Windows AMIs in French, Spanish, German, and Italian.

For more information, see Launching Windows European AMIs in Different Languages.

Non-English AMIs

As of this release, you must first launch non-English AMIs in English and then change the language settings to the correct language.

Windows AMI launch times

Windows AMIs take longer to launch than Linux/UNIX instances due to larger AMI sizes and multiple reboots.

Windows AMI sizes

Windows AMIs are large and can easily reach the 10 GB limit. Before rebundling, check the size of the C:\ volume.

Amazon DevPay and Windows instances

Amazon DevPay does not yet support Windows paid or supported AMIs. This means that you currently can’t create a Windows AMI and sell it through DevPay, or associate an Amazon DevPay product code with a Windows AMI.

Windows instance availability

Initially, Windows instances will only be available in a single availability zone. Until notified, do not specify an availability zone when using ec2-run-instances; Amazon EC2 automatically launches Windows instances in the correct zone.

Limitation on drive mapping

There is currently no support for volume attachment to devices beyond /dev/sdp on instances running Linux/UNIX and xvdp on instances running Windows.

Limitation of AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress

AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress does not allow port ranges for group grants when using the command-line tools or the Query API. This is only supported through the SOAP API.

Instance limit

New users are limited to a maximum of 20 concurrent instances, but many of our customers use hundreds or thousands of instances. If you need a higher limit, go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/html-forms-controller/ec2-request.