Microsoft Workloads on AWS

Migration and modernization strategies for your SQL Server workloads on AWS

In this post, we explore various options to consider when optimizing your workloads to run on AWS. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to your migration and modernization journey. Use this post as a guide to help you strategically decide and plan migrations for your SQL Server workloads. Migrating your workloads to AWS offers several advantages, […]

Monitor applications and AWS infrastructure using Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights

Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights helps you monitor your applications and AWS infrastructure running those applications by providing easy monitoring setup and a holistic view into the health of your applications. You begin with CloudWatch Application Insights discovering the applications in your AWS Resource Groups or account. Then, it will identify and set up metrics, logs, […]

Improve EC2 Windows launch experience by upgrading the launch agent to the latest EC2Launch v2

Overview EC2Launch v2 is the latest Windows launch agent offered by AWS. It is the upgraded version of earlier launch agents, EC2Config and EC2Launch v1. EC2Launch v2 comes with more features that allow better control over the launch experience of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Windows instances. It makes the launch process consistent, more […]

How Thermo Fisher Scientific integrated Microsoft Power Apps with data lake resources on AWS to enable automated self-service platform

This blog post explains how Thermo Fisher Scientific team integrated Microsoft Power Apps with data lake resources provisioned on Amazon S3. The post will also walk through the workflow devised to automate and enable the self-service platform for business users.

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server and AWS Managed Microsoft AD Multi-Administrator Deployment

In this blog post, I will demonstrate how to configure your Amazon FSx for Windows File Server and AWS Managed Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to give separate teams administrative control over each individual Amazon FSx for Windows File Server. I was working with a customer that deployed Amazon FSx for Windows File Server with AWS […]

Setting up monitors for .NET Application and SQL Server using Application Insights

Many Windows-based applications are .NET applications. They use SQL Server in the backend to retrieve and persist data. Often in the journey to the cloud, a rehost decision is made for such a solution using a simple lift-and-shift approach. When such applications are hosted on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Windows platform, native […]

Automating Amazon FSx for Windows File Server configuration for more efficient enforcement of security controls

Modern data security strategies require enforcing multiple security controls – including encryption, end-user access control, monitoring, and auditing – to meet internal security policies and compliance goals. Automating the configuration and enforcement of these controls not only reduces the risk of human error and mismanagement, but also reduces management cost and overhead, especially for complex […]

Launch Microsoft Windows Server instances on Amazon EC2 up to 65% faster than before

Introduction AWS customers running Microsoft Windows Server instances face long wait times while provisioning instances, as the Windows Server operating system (OS) goes through a lengthy boot process. For developers and IT professionals, this can make it difficult to support deployment time and system capacity service level agreements (SLAs). When meeting highly-demanding SLAs for mission-critical […]

Reduce Storage Costs by setting up MetaCacheDatabase for Microsoft Exchange 2019 on AWS

Challenge Microsoft Exchange is a storage-heavy application, so storage may become cost prohibitive for new deployments. Solid state drives and faster spinning disks are still costly options when multiple copies of the same data needs to be replicated across the global infrastructure. Storage costs have made offerings like Microsoft Office 365 an enticing alternative. In […]

Implement a SQL Server HA/DR solution on AWS Outposts

In highly-regulated industries, such as financial services, in-country data residency requirements can often challenge cloud adoption, especially in countries without an AWS Region. In such a case, AWS Outposts could be a good solution to achieve durability and availability whilst complying with in-country data requirements. Outposts, which provides a pool of compute and storage capacity […]