Table Of ContentAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud: User Guide for Windows Instances
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Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Table of Contents
What is Amazon EC2? ......................................................................................................................... 1
Features of Amazon EC2............................................................................................................. 1
How to get started with Amazon EC2 ........................................................................................... 1
Related services......................................................................................................................... 2
Access Amazon EC2 .................................................................................................................... 3
Pricing for Amazon EC2 .............................................................................................................. 3
PCI DSS compliance.................................................................................................................... 4
Set up.............................................................................................................................................. 5
Sign up for AWS ........................................................................................................................ 5
Create a key pair ........................................................................................................................ 5
Create a security group ............................................................................................................... 6
Get started tutorial ............................................................................................................................ 9
Overview................................................................................................................................... 9
Prerequisites............................................................................................................................ 10
Step 1: Launch an instance ........................................................................................................ 10
Step 2: Connect to your instance ............................................................................................... 11
Step 3: Clean up your instance.................................................................................................. 17
Next steps............................................................................................................................... 17
Best practices.................................................................................................................................. 18
Amazon Machine Images ................................................................................................................... 21
Boot modes............................................................................................................................. 21
Launch an instance ........................................................................................................... 22
AMI boot mode parameter................................................................................................ 24
Instance type boot mode .................................................................................................. 25
Instance boot mode .......................................................................................................... 25
Operating system boot mode............................................................................................ 26
Set AMI boot mode.......................................................................................................... 27
UEFI variables.................................................................................................................. 29
UEFI Secure Boot ............................................................................................................. 29
AWS Windows AMIs .................................................................................................................. 32
Select an initial Windows AMI ............................................................................................ 33
Keep your AMIs up to date ................................................................................................ 33
Virtualization types.......................................................................................................... 33
Configure your Windows AMI for faster launching ................................................................ 34
Managed AWS Windows AMIs ............................................................................................ 45
Specialized Windows AMIs ................................................................................................. 52
AWS Windows AMI version history ..................................................................................... 59
Find a Windows AMI............................................................................................................... 109
Find a Windows AMI using the Amazon EC2 console ........................................................... 110
Find an AMI using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell ................................................... 111
Find an AMI using the AWS CLI ........................................................................................ 111
Find the latest Windows AMI using Systems Manager .......................................................... 111
Use a Systems Manager parameter to find an AMI .............................................................. 112
Shared AMIs........................................................................................................................... 115
Verified provider............................................................................................................. 115
Find shared AMIs ............................................................................................................ 115
Make an AMI public ........................................................................................................ 118
Share an AMI with organizations or OUs ........................................................................... 120
Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts .......................................................................... 128
Cancel having an AMI shared with your account ................................................................. 131
Use bookmarks.............................................................................................................. 132
Best practices for shared Windows AMIs ............................................................................ 132
Paid AMIs.............................................................................................................................. 133
Sell your AMI ................................................................................................................. 133
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Find a paid AMI.............................................................................................................. 133
Purchase a paid AMI ....................................................................................................... 135
Get the product code for your instance ............................................................................. 135
Use paid support ............................................................................................................ 135
Bills for paid and supported AMIs ..................................................................................... 136
Manage your AWS Marketplace subscriptions ..................................................................... 136
AMI lifecycle.......................................................................................................................... 137
Create a custom Windows AMI ......................................................................................... 137
Copy an AMI .................................................................................................................. 152
Store and restore an AMI ................................................................................................ 159
Deprecate an AMI ........................................................................................................... 165
Deregister your AMI ........................................................................................................ 170
Recover AMIs from the Recycle Bin ................................................................................... 174
Automate the EBS-backed AMI lifecycle ............................................................................ 177
Use encryption with EBS-backed AMIs ....................................................................................... 177
Instance-launching scenarios............................................................................................ 178
Image-copying scenarios.................................................................................................. 180
Monitor AMI events ................................................................................................................ 182
AMI events.................................................................................................................... 183
Create Amazon EventBridge rules ..................................................................................... 184
Understand AMI billing........................................................................................................... 186
AMI billing fields............................................................................................................ 187
Find AMI billing information............................................................................................ 188
Verify AMI charges on your bill ........................................................................................ 190
AMI quotas............................................................................................................................ 190
Request a quota increase for AMIs .................................................................................... 191
Instances....................................................................................................................................... 192
Windows instances................................................................................................................. 192
Instances and AMIs ......................................................................................................... 192
Differences between Windows Server and Windows instances ............................................... 193
Design your applications to run on Windows instances ........................................................ 194
Instance types........................................................................................................................ 195
Instance type names ....................................................................................................... 195
Available instance types .................................................................................................. 196
Hardware specifications................................................................................................... 201
Instances built on the Nitro System .................................................................................. 202
Networking and storage features ...................................................................................... 203
Instance limits................................................................................................................ 206
General purpose............................................................................................................. 206
Compute optimized ........................................................................................................ 254
Memory optimized .......................................................................................................... 263
Storage optimized.......................................................................................................... 279
Accelerated computing.................................................................................................... 286
Find an instance type ...................................................................................................... 302
Get recommendations..................................................................................................... 303
Change the instance type ................................................................................................ 306
Instance purchasing options ..................................................................................................... 313
Determine the instance lifecycle ....................................................................................... 314
On-Demand Instances..................................................................................................... 315
Reserved Instances......................................................................................................... 319
Scheduled Instances........................................................................................................ 359
Spot Instances................................................................................................................ 360
Dedicated Hosts............................................................................................................. 424
Dedicated Instances........................................................................................................ 460
On-Demand Capacity Reservations ................................................................................... 465
Instance lifecycle.................................................................................................................... 502
Instance launch.............................................................................................................. 504
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User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance stop and start (Amazon EBS-backed instances only) ................................................ 504
Instance hibernate (Amazon EBS-backed instances only) ...................................................... 504
Instance reboot.............................................................................................................. 505
Instance retirement......................................................................................................... 505
Instance termination....................................................................................................... 505
Differences between reboot, stop, hibernate, and terminate ................................................. 506
Launch.......................................................................................................................... 507
Stop and start ................................................................................................................ 545
Hibernate...................................................................................................................... 551
Reboot.......................................................................................................................... 563
Retire............................................................................................................................ 564
Terminate...................................................................................................................... 566
Recover......................................................................................................................... 573
Connect................................................................................................................................. 576
Connect to your instance ................................................................................................. 577
Connect your instance to a resource ................................................................................. 591
Configure instances................................................................................................................. 629
EC2Launch v2................................................................................................................ 629
EC2Launch..................................................................................................................... 674
EC2Config service........................................................................................................... 683
PV drivers...................................................................................................................... 710
AWS NVMe drivers .......................................................................................................... 730
Optimize CPU options ..................................................................................................... 733
Set the time.................................................................................................................. 759
Set the password ............................................................................................................ 764
Add Windows components .............................................................................................. 765
Configure a secondary private IPv4 Address ....................................................................... 768
Run commands at launch ................................................................................................ 773
Instance metadata and user data ...................................................................................... 780
SQL Server Clustering in EC2 ........................................................................................... 835
Upgrade Windows instances .................................................................................................... 841
Perform an in-place upgrade ........................................................................................... 842
Perform an automated upgrade ....................................................................................... 846
Migrate to latest generation instance types ....................................................................... 854
Migrate Microsoft SQL Server from Windows to Linux ......................................................... 860
Troubleshoot an upgrade ................................................................................................. 867
Identify instances................................................................................................................... 867
Inspect the instance identity document ............................................................................. 867
Inspect the system UUID ................................................................................................. 867
Inspect the system virtual machine generation identifier ..................................................... 868
Set up a Windows HPC cluster ................................................................................................. 868
Prerequisites.................................................................................................................. 869
Step 1: Create your security groups .................................................................................. 869
Step 2: Set up your Active Directory domain controller ........................................................ 871
Step 3: Configure your head node .................................................................................... 872
Step 4: Set up the compute node ..................................................................................... 873
Step 5: Scale your HPC compute nodes (optional) ............................................................... 875
Fleets............................................................................................................................................ 876
EC2 Fleet............................................................................................................................... 876
EC2 Fleet limitations ....................................................................................................... 877
Burstable performance instances ...................................................................................... 877
EC2 Fleet request types ................................................................................................... 878
EC2 Fleet configuration strategies .................................................................................... 896
Work with EC2 Fleets ...................................................................................................... 920
Spot Fleet.............................................................................................................................. 938
Spot Fleet request types ................................................................................................. 938
Spot Fleet configuration strategies ................................................................................... 938
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Work with Spot Fleets ..................................................................................................... 963
CloudWatch metrics for Spot Fleet ................................................................................... 983
Automatic scaling for Spot Fleet...................................................................................... 985
Monitor fleet events ............................................................................................................... 991
EC2 Fleet event types ..................................................................................................... 992
Spot Fleet event types .................................................................................................... 996
Create EventBridge rules ................................................................................................ 1001
Tutorials.............................................................................................................................. 1007
Tutorial: Use EC2 Fleet with instance weighting ................................................................ 1008
Tutorial: Use EC2 Fleet with On-Demand as the primary capacity ........................................ 1010
Tutorial: Launch On-Demand Instances using targeted Capacity Reservations ........................ 1011
Tutorial: Use Spot Fleet with instance weighting ............................................................... 1016
Example configurations......................................................................................................... 1018
EC2 Fleet example configurations ................................................................................... 1018
Spot Fleet example configurations.................................................................................. 1033
Fleet quotas......................................................................................................................... 1045
Request a quota increase for target capacity .................................................................... 1046
Elastic Graphics............................................................................................................................ 1047
Elastic Graphics basics........................................................................................................... 1047
Pricing for Elastic Graphics.................................................................................................... 1049
Elastic Graphics limitations.................................................................................................... 1049
Work with Elastic Graphics ..................................................................................................... 1049
Configure your security groups ....................................................................................... 1050
Launch an instance with an Elastic Graphics accelerator ..................................................... 1051
Install the required software for Elastic Graphics .............................................................. 1052
Verify Elastic Graphics functionality on your instance ........................................................ 1052
View Elastic Graphics information................................................................................... 1054
Submit feedback........................................................................................................... 1055
Elastic Graphics maintenance ................................................................................................. 1055
How will I be notified? .................................................................................................. 1055
What do I need to do?.................................................................................................. 1056
What happens when an accelerator reaches its retirement date? ......................................... 1056
Use CloudWatch metrics to monitor Elastic Graphics ................................................................. 1056
Elastic Graphics metrics................................................................................................. 1056
Elastic Graphics dimensions........................................................................................... 1057
View CloudWatch metrics for Elastic Graphics .................................................................. 1057
Create CloudWatch alarms to monitor Elastic Graphics ...................................................... 1057
Troubleshoot........................................................................................................................ 1058
Investigate application performance issues ....................................................................... 1058
Resolve unhealthy status issues ...................................................................................... 1060
Why am I seeing multiple ENIs? ...................................................................................... 1061
Monitor....................................................................................................................................... 1062
Automated and manual monitoring........................................................................................ 1063
Automated monitoring tools.......................................................................................... 1063
Manual monitoring tools............................................................................................... 1064
Best practices for monitoring ................................................................................................. 1064
Monitor the status of your instances ....................................................................................... 1065
Instance status checks................................................................................................... 1065
State change events ...................................................................................................... 1071
Scheduled events.......................................................................................................... 1073
Monitor your instances using CloudWatch ................................................................................ 1096
Enable detailed monitoring............................................................................................ 1097
List available metrics..................................................................................................... 1099
Get statistics for metrics................................................................................................ 1111
Graph metrics.............................................................................................................. 1119
Create an alarm............................................................................................................ 1119
Create alarms that stop, terminate, reboot, or recover an instance ....................................... 1121
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Automate using EventBridge .................................................................................................. 1132
Amazon EC2 event types ............................................................................................... 1132
Log API calls with AWS CloudTrail .......................................................................................... 1133
Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS information in CloudTrail .................................................... 1133
Understand Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS log file entries .................................................. 1134
Audit users that connect via EC2 Instance Connect ............................................................ 1135
Monitor your .NET and SQL Server applications ........................................................................ 1136
Networking .................................................................................................................................. 1137
Regions and Zones ................................................................................................................ 1137
Regions....................................................................................................................... 1138
Availability Zones.......................................................................................................... 1142
Local Zones.................................................................................................................. 1146
Wavelength Zones........................................................................................................ 1148
AWS Outposts.............................................................................................................. 1150
Instance IP addressing ........................................................................................................... 1151
Private IPv4 addresses................................................................................................... 1152
Public IPv4 addresses.................................................................................................... 1152
Elastic IP addresses (IPv4) .............................................................................................. 1153
IPv6 addresses.............................................................................................................. 1153
Work with the IPv4 addresses for your instances ............................................................... 1154
Work with the IPv6 addresses for your instances ............................................................... 1156
Multiple IP addresses.................................................................................................... 1158
EC2 instance hostnames ................................................................................................ 1166
Instance hostname types ....................................................................................................... 1166
Types of EC2 hostnames ................................................................................................ 1166
Where you see Resource name and IP name ..................................................................... 1167
How to decide whether to choose Resource name or IP name ............................................. 1168
Modify Hostname type and DNS Hostname configurations ................................................. 1169
Bring your own IP addresses .................................................................................................. 1170
BYOIP definitions.......................................................................................................... 1170
Requirements and quotas .............................................................................................. 1171
Onboarding prerequisites............................................................................................... 1171
Onboard your BYOIP ..................................................................................................... 1177
Work with your address range ........................................................................................ 1180
Validate your BYOIP ...................................................................................................... 1180
Learn more.................................................................................................................. 1183
Assigning prefixes................................................................................................................. 1183
Basics for assigning prefixes ........................................................................................... 1184
Considerations and limits for prefixes .............................................................................. 1184
Work with prefixes........................................................................................................ 1185
Elastic IP addresses ............................................................................................................... 1194
Elastic IP address pricing ............................................................................................... 1195
Elastic IP address basics ................................................................................................. 1195
Work with Elastic IP addresses....................................................................................... 1196
Elastic IP address limit .................................................................................................. 1207
Network interfaces................................................................................................................ 1207
Network interface basics ................................................................................................ 1208
IP addresses per network interface per instance type ........................................................ 1209
Work with network interfaces ........................................................................................ 1226
Best practices for configuring network interfaces .............................................................. 1234
Scenarios for network interfaces ..................................................................................... 1234
Requester-managed network interfaces........................................................................... 1236
Network bandwidth.............................................................................................................. 1237
Available instance bandwidth......................................................................................... 1238
Monitor instance bandwidth........................................................................................... 1239
Enhanced networking ............................................................................................................ 1239
Enhanced networking support ........................................................................................ 1240
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Enable enhanced networking on your instance................................................................. 1240
Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) ....................................................................................... 1240
ENA Express................................................................................................................. 1248
Intel 82599 VF............................................................................................................. 1254
Operating system optimizations..................................................................................... 1257
Network performance metrics ........................................................................................ 1258
Placement groups................................................................................................................. 1260
Placement group strategies ............................................................................................ 1261
Placement group rules and limitations ............................................................................ 1263
Working with placement groups..................................................................................... 1265
Share a placement group ............................................................................................... 1272
Placement groups on AWS Outposts ............................................................................... 1276
Network MTU....................................................................................................................... 1277
Jumbo frames (9001 MTU)............................................................................................ 1277
Path MTU Discovery ...................................................................................................... 1278
Check the path MTU between two hosts .......................................................................... 1278
Check and set the MTU on your Windows instance ............................................................ 1279
Troubleshoot................................................................................................................ 1281
Virtual private clouds ............................................................................................................ 1281
Your default VPCs......................................................................................................... 1281
Create additional VPCs .................................................................................................. 1282
Access the internet from your instances ........................................................................... 1283
RDP access to your instances .......................................................................................... 1283
Ports and Protocols .............................................................................................................. 1283
AllJoyn Router.............................................................................................................. 1284
Cast to Device .............................................................................................................. 1284
Core Networking........................................................................................................... 1286
Delivery Optimization.................................................................................................... 1316
Diag Track................................................................................................................... 1317
DIAL Protocol Server ..................................................................................................... 1317
Distributed File System (DFS) Management ...................................................................... 1317
File and Printer Sharing................................................................................................. 1318
File Server Remote Management .................................................................................... 1320
ICMP v4 All.................................................................................................................. 1321
Microsoft Edge............................................................................................................. 1321
Microsoft Media Foundation Network Source .................................................................... 1321
Multicast...................................................................................................................... 1322
Remote Desktop........................................................................................................... 1322
Windows Device Management ........................................................................................ 1324
Windows Feature Experience Pack................................................................................... 1326
Windows Firewall Remote Management ........................................................................... 1326
Windows Remote Management ...................................................................................... 1326
EC2-Classic........................................................................................................................... 1327
Detect supported platforms ........................................................................................... 1327
Instance types available in EC2-Classic ............................................................................ 1327
Differences between instances in EC2-Classic and a VPC .................................................... 1328
Share and access resources between EC2-Classic and a VPC ................................................ 1331
ClassicLink................................................................................................................... 1332
Migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC .................................................................................. 1343
Security....................................................................................................................................... 1351
Infrastructure security........................................................................................................... 1352
Network isolation......................................................................................................... 1352
Isolation on physical hosts ............................................................................................. 1352
Controlling network traffic ............................................................................................. 1352
Resilience............................................................................................................................. 1354
Data protection.................................................................................................................... 1354
Amazon EBS data security............................................................................................. 1355
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Encryption at rest ......................................................................................................... 1355
Encryption in transit..................................................................................................... 1356
Identity and access management ............................................................................................ 1357
Network access to your instance ..................................................................................... 1358
Amazon EC2 permission attributes .................................................................................. 1358
IAM and Amazon EC2 .................................................................................................... 1358
IAM policies................................................................................................................. 1360
AWS managed policies.................................................................................................. 1414
IAM roles..................................................................................................................... 1416
Network access............................................................................................................. 1426
Key pairs............................................................................................................................. 1430
Create key pairs............................................................................................................ 1431
Tag a public key........................................................................................................... 1435
Describe public keys...................................................................................................... 1437
Delete a public key ....................................................................................................... 1440
Verify keys................................................................................................................... 1441
Security groups.................................................................................................................... 1442
Security group rules ...................................................................................................... 1443
Connection tracking ...................................................................................................... 1445
Default and custom security groups ................................................................................ 1447
Work with security groups ............................................................................................. 1448
Security group rules for different use cases ...................................................................... 1458
AWS PrivateLink................................................................................................................... 1463
Create an interface VPC endpoint ................................................................................... 1463
Create an endpoint policy .............................................................................................. 1464
Configuration management.................................................................................................... 1465
Update management............................................................................................................ 1465
Change management............................................................................................................ 1465
Compliance validation........................................................................................................... 1466
Audit and accountability ........................................................................................................ 1467
NitroTPM............................................................................................................................. 1467
Considerations.............................................................................................................. 1468
Prerequisites................................................................................................................ 1468
Verify whether an AMI is enabled for NitroTPM ................................................................ 1469
Enable or stop using NitroTPM on an instance .................................................................. 1470
Storage....................................................................................................................................... 1472
Amazon EBS ........................................................................................................................ 1473
Features of Amazon EBS ................................................................................................ 1474
EBS volumes................................................................................................................ 1474
EBS snapshots.............................................................................................................. 1525
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager ..................................................................................... 1624
EBS data services.......................................................................................................... 1672
EBS volumes and NVMe ................................................................................................ 1701
EBS optimization.......................................................................................................... 1703
EBS performance.......................................................................................................... 1728
EBS CloudWatch metrics ................................................................................................ 1742
EBS EventBridge events................................................................................................. 1748
EBS quotas.................................................................................................................. 1759
Instance store....................................................................................................................... 1759
Instance store lifetime ................................................................................................... 1760
Instance store volumes.................................................................................................. 1760
Add instance store volumes ........................................................................................... 1769
SSD instance store volumes ........................................................................................... 1773
File storage.......................................................................................................................... 1774
Amazon S3.................................................................................................................. 1774
Amazon EFS................................................................................................................. 1776
Amazon FSx................................................................................................................. 1776
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Instance volume limits ........................................................................................................... 1780
Nitro System volume limits ............................................................................................ 1780
Windows-specific volume limits ...................................................................................... 1780
Bandwidth versus capacity ............................................................................................. 1781
Root device volume .............................................................................................................. 1781
Configure the root volume to persist ............................................................................... 1781
Confirm that a root volume is configured to persist ........................................................... 1783
Change the initial size of the root volume ....................................................................... 1784
Device names....................................................................................................................... 1785
Available device names.................................................................................................. 1785
Device name considerations........................................................................................... 1786
Block device mappings .......................................................................................................... 1786
Block device mapping concepts...................................................................................... 1786
AMI block device mapping ............................................................................................. 1789
Instance block device mapping ....................................................................................... 1791
Map disks to volumes ............................................................................................................ 1795
List NVMe volumes....................................................................................................... 1795
List volumes................................................................................................................. 1799
Torn write prevention ............................................................................................................ 1805
Pricing......................................................................................................................... 1806
Supported block sizes and block boundary alignments ...................................................... 1806
Requirements............................................................................................................... 1806
Check torn write prevention support and configuration ..................................................... 1807
Configure your software stack for torn write prevention .................................................... 1808
Resources and tags....................................................................................................................... 1809
Recycle Bin.......................................................................................................................... 1809
How does it work? ........................................................................................................ 1810
Supported resources..................................................................................................... 1810
Considerations.............................................................................................................. 1810
Quotas........................................................................................................................ 1812
Related services............................................................................................................ 1812
Pricing......................................................................................................................... 1812
Required IAM permissions .............................................................................................. 1813
Work with retention rules .............................................................................................. 1816
Work with resources in the Recycle Bin ............................................................................ 1826
Monitor Recycle Bin...................................................................................................... 1826
Resource locations................................................................................................................ 1839
Resource IDs........................................................................................................................ 1840
List and filter your resources .................................................................................................. 1840
List and filter resources using the console ........................................................................ 1840
List and filter using the CLI and API................................................................................ 1845
List and filter resources across Regions using Amazon EC2 Global View ................................ 1847
Tag your resources ................................................................................................................ 1848
Tag basics.................................................................................................................... 1848
Tag your resources........................................................................................................ 1849
Tag restrictions............................................................................................................. 1852
Tags and access management........................................................................................ 1853
Tag your resources for billing ......................................................................................... 1853
Work with tags using the console ................................................................................... 1853
Work with tags using the command line .......................................................................... 1857
Work with instance tags in instance metadata .................................................................. 1860
Add tags to a resource using CloudFormation ................................................................... 1862
Service quotas...................................................................................................................... 1863
View your current limits ................................................................................................ 1864
Request an increase ...................................................................................................... 1864
Restriction on email sent using port 25 ........................................................................... 1865
Usage reports....................................................................................................................... 1865
x
Description:Differences between Windows Server and an Amazon EC2 Windows Instance . The AWS Marketplace is an online store where you can buy software that runs on AWS, including AMIs that you can use Walkthrough: Looking Up Amazon Machine Image IDs (AWS Lambda, AWS CloudFormation).