Category: AWS Systems Manager

When building Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, you often bootstrap them to accomplish basic tasks, like OS/application configuration, domain join, installing software, and configuration at scale. However, as configurations grow more complex, requiring multiple steps such as hostname changes, domain joins, and software installations, relying solely on a single bootstrap method can lead […]

Introduction We recently announced that Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for SQL Server supports Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition using your own installation media through the custom engine version (CEV) feature. This capability enables you to use SQL Server Developer Edition in development and testing environments without incurring additional licensing costs, while benefiting from […]

Update (June 2026): AWS License Manager now automatically recognizes EC2 Image Builder instances using the Ec2ImageBuilderArn and CreatedBy tag keys (with value EC2 Image Builder). This means License Manager skips the domain join and license activation process for Image Builder build instances, eliminating the need for the wait mechanism described in this post. The GitHub […]

This blog post introduces a new AWS feature that enables point-in-time recovery for SQL Server using EBS snapshots. It offers a detailed walkthrough for creating VSS-integrated snapshots and restoring SQL Server databases using EBS snapshots to simplify database backups and automate point-in-time restore. Introduction Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently introduced support for restoring Microsoft SQL […]

In this blog post, I will show you how Amazon EventBridge can automate Microsoft Active Directory (AD) domain join and unjoin for your Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances. In a previous blog post, I showed you how AWS Systems Manager Automation can dynamically domain join and unjoin EC2 instances manually. I have worked […]

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 […]