Windows on AWS

This page contains links and hints and tips for this workshop. You only need to access this link.

This page is public, no access, PII or other non public info will be shared here. The presenter will provide more details about accessing the lab environment privately with you during the session.

Labs - Fundamentals of Windows on AWS Workshop

Fundamentals of Windows on AWS Workshop https://catalog.us-east-1.prod.workshops.aws/workshops/067af2a2-109d-41ed-9170-4b5f0813fece/en-US We’ll be following these instructions for this AWS hands on session.

In Lab 1 we build our network using IaaC. These AWS resources are built quickly, completing in just a few minutes. This is a prime example of software defined cloud resources.

In later labs we’ll build out Microsoft Active Directory (Lab 2), an Amazon Elastic File Service network share for Windows (Lab 3) and finally a Windows Server (Lab 4). All of these builds take 10s of minutes; typical for Microsoft workloads.

In the final lab (Lab 4 Windows Server) we’ll manually correct some configuration issues including mapping the domain join.

This workshop has a mix of IaaC and more traditional, manual resource creation. Think about how you could use more automation to scale, reduce manual work, remove potential for human error, and deal with unplanned events at scale.

Lab 1 - Create VPC

Here we launch a cloudformation template with no parameters. This is really simple, error free and reusable.

Build time about 2 minutes. Why so quick?

Lab 2

Here we build an AWS Managed Microsoft Active Directory environment. In your work environment AD is managed elsewhere, but we need to build a temporary AD environment for these labs.

Build time up to 40 minutes. Why so long?

Lab 3

Now we build an Amazon FSx for Windows File Server; think SAN in the cloud or high performance network attached storage.

This will also take about 30 minutes.

Lab 4

Finally after we’ve built our infrastructure, IDM and Storage resources we can launch a Windows Server, using AD for Auth and Auth and connect to our network file share.

This lab now uses a more recent Amazon EC2 AMI (Amazon Machine Image or server blueprint) which is configured with less permissive defaults. We’ll fix these issues manually.

There are better ways to deploy a Windows Server; so think about how you could leverage automation, run books or other more efficient deployment and management options.

Hints for Manual Updates

Change domain in Windows Server

use NETBIOS name in caps aka CORP\admin and pwd as per https://docs.aws.amazon.com/directoryservice/latest/admin-guide/join_windows_instance.html
To connect to Fsx share user is CORP/admin and pwd from the directory service. NOTE ignore the group policy perms errors in this lab.