Amazon Web Services Now Supports Microsoft's Windows PowerShell

Amazon announces that it has adopted Microsoft's Windows PowerShell, and now enables developers and administrators to manage their AWS services from the Windows PowerShell scripting environment with more than 550 cmdlets.

Amazon's intent is to draw developer interest by simplifying AWS and allowing them manage your AWS resources with the same Windows PowerShell tools they use for a Windows environment. Given the fact that Microsoft owns a solid second position in the cloud IaaS/PaaS arena, it was a matter of time until Amazon would get much more serious about Windows developers.

"For Windows developers, administrators, and IT Pros alike, PowerShell is becoming the tool of choice to manage Windows environments. Now you can use PowerShell to manage your AWS services too," wrote Tom Rizzo in a blog post. Amazon is offering AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell as a free download.

Amazon also announced AWS Detailed Billing Reports, as well as AWS Auto Scaling that now makes use of EC2 status checks.

Wolfgang Gruener is a contributor to Tom's IT Pro. He is currently principal analyst at Ndicio Research, a market analysis firm that focuses on cloud computing and disruptive technologies, and maintains the conceivablytech.com blog. An 18-year veteran in IT journalism and market research, he previously published TG Daily and was managing editor of Tom's Hardware news, which he grew from a link collection in the early 2000s into one of the most comprehensive and trusted technology news sources.

See here for all of Wolfgang's Tom's IT Pro articles.

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