AWS Introduces Amazon Linux WorkSpaces

Posted on: Jun 26, 2018

Amazon WorkSpaces now offers a Linux desktop based on Amazon Linux 2. With this launch, Amazon WorkSpaces customers have the flexibility to choose either a Windows 7, Windows 10, or Amazon Linux 2 desktop. Customers can easily provision Amazon Workspaces for a growing range of use cases that now includes Linux developer desktops, kiosks like point of sale devices, and economical general-purpose desktops.

Today, organizations faced with managing both Windows and Linux desktops have to manage a range of different hardware configurations and support models, resulting in added complexity, management overhead, and costs. With Amazon WorkSpaces, customers now have the flexibility to deploy a secure, managed cloud desktop environment of their choice, either Windows or Linux, based on the specific needs of their workforce.

Amazon Linux WorkSpaces are available with common Linux development tools, including the Eclipse IDE and AWS SDKs, which makes building, testing, and deploying code to AWS easy. Customers already using Amazon Linux 2 for their EC2 server workloads can use Amazon Linux WorkSpaces as a cloud-native development environment that closely matches their production environment, simplifying build, integration, and testing of applications. Amazon Linux WorkSpaces come with the same five-year support as the Amazon Linux 2 Long Term Support (LTS) release. And because Amazon Linux WorkSpaces are built on Amazon Linux 2, customers can administer them using familiar AWS Management Tools, helping to lower the overhead when managing a large fleets of desktops.

Amazon Linux WorkSpaces are available today in all regions where Amazon WorkSpaces is available. Customers can enable Amazon Linux 2 desktops from the Amazon WorkSpaces console, AWS API, or AWS CLI alongside any existing managed Windows desktops, and pay only for what is used with no upfront costs or software purchases required. To get started, log into the AWS Management Console, and provision an Amazon WorkSpaces Linux bundle.