Category: AWS Systems Manager

Introduction In this blog post, I am going to show you how easy it is to deploy a secure infrastructure to manage your Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances for Microsoft Windows Server through the automation provided by AWS Launch Wizard. AWS Launch Wizard offers a guided way of sizing, configuring, and deploying AWS […]

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 […]

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 […]

In this blog post, we will show you how to automate the process of downgrading from Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise or Standard edition to SQL Server Developer edition to save cost. Introduction Every day, customers benefit from the cost savings, scalability, performance, and ease of management of running SQL Server on AWS. Deploying SQL Server […]

Introduction In this blog post, I will demonstrate how to configure Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights for a Microsoft SharePoint farm. Management and governance are important aspects of any workload, whether it is running on-premises or in the AWS Cloud. In this context, management refers to performing defined actions, either automated or manual, to make sure […]

In this blog post, I will show you how to update AWS Tools for PowerShell at scale within your environment by using the AWS Systems Manager Run Command. Manually updating AWS Tools for PowerShell across multiple instances can be time-consuming, inefficient, and error prone. These manual operational efforts typically result in a logistical nightmare, especially […]

For customers that have workloads in the AWS Cloud, a common use case is the provisioning of new user accounts in Active Directory, and subsequently, WorkSpaces for these new users. In this blog post, we will present an efficient and reusable solution to automate the creation, provisioning, and deprovisioning of Microsoft Active Directory (AD) user […]

In this blog post, we will present a sample solution and provide recommendations on how to reduce both the cost and time associated with a Microsoft Windows Server instance joining an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Auto Scaling group up to 78%. Customers using Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling often desire faster scale-out times to […]

In this blog post, we will look at how to automate the rotation of the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) credentials synchronized with Microsoft SQL Server credentials to meet password rotation requirements. Solution overview The IAM Access key and Secret access key are used to create a SQL Server credential; therefore, to rotate the […]

In this blog post, I will guide you through the procedure necessary to prepare your Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) workloads to receive Extended Security Updates (ESU) purchased from Microsoft. This is achieved by utilizing the Patch Manager and Run Command capabilities of AWS Systems Manager. Windows Server users are familiar with Microsoft’s regular […]