I am not sure how I missed this, Amazon EC2 to support Microsoft Windows Server, this looks like it is something else that attendees at PDC can expect.
The 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows Server will be available and will be able to use all existing EC2 features such as Elastic IP Addresses, Availability Zones, and the Elastic Block Store. You’ll be able to call any of the other Amazon Web Services from your application. You will, for example, be able to use the Amazon Simple Queue Service to glue cross-platform applications together.
Existing EC2 tools will be able to launch Windows-powered EC2 instances. Once launched, you can use the Windows Remote Desktop or the rdesktop tool to access your instances.
I fully expect to see this new level of flexibility used to create complex, highly scalable, heterogeneous EC2 applications using a mix of Linux, Solaris, and Windows instances, all on a pay-as-you-go basis.
I’ve been holding off on a Windows host mostly because I didn’t feel like any of the hosts offered me the flexibility of EC2, Joyent Accelerator, MediaTemple GS, Mosso, or others. Because I want to run emerging technologies on my system, it makes it really hard to just purchase a shared hosting account. And I’m not the guy that wants to host a Windows Server in his basement. I like having my Software+Services in the cloud (hosting is something that I’ve outsourced since the 90s, why change that opinion now).
I wonder if the pre-beta bits of Windows 7 will run on EC2?