Exchange 2010

[Andrew Bruno]

Hello,

I am looking at setting up a test windows instance that can run
Windows 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010. I need it for some EWS (Exchange
Web Services) development.

Looking at the http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html page, I
am trying to work out what kind of EC2 instance I would need?

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks
Andrew

[Mark Bate]

Hi Andrew,

I haven't really played with Windows servers in EC2 yet (ours are all Ubuntu / Fedora), but I'd suggest that it's probably best to start with a m1.small or t1.micro image & scale up / down / out as you need to.

If you've not used AWS before, then it'll take you a little time to get used to the concepts - it's mostly simple & the docs are v. good, but you're going to have a few "damn! I launched with the wrong Security Group!" moments, it's better to have these at 12c/hr rather than $2.50/hr ;p.

Also, remember to stop / shutdown instances when you're not using, otherwise they add up!

hope that helps - feel free to ping me if you have any further Qs.

thanks,

mark

--

Mark Bate

Wrestler of Crocodiles and Infrastructure

Mekentosj Inc.

email: ma...@mekentosj.com

twitter: @markbate

[Andrew Bruno]

Hi Mark,

In theory, starting small sounds good. Just a quick question:

If I start with a micro, can I easily upgrade to a bigger processor
without loosing my setup, or do I need to re-install everything again?

Cheers
Andrew

[Mark Bate]

Hi Andrew,

Yeah scaling up & down is fairly easy to do - just create an AMI (Amazon Machine Image) of your server & then boot an instance of the new AMI.

If you're using an EBS AMI to start with, then the option appears in the AWS console.

If not, then you'll need to use the ec2-ami-tools & ec2-api-tools to bundle & upload.

I think you may also be able to unmount the EBS from one instance & then mount it to another, but I generally just create an AMI so I have a point to go back to if something goes wrong ;p.

I haven't had too much chance to play with the t1.micros yet, but I know one of the caveats there is that there's no ephemeral (local) storage mounted, so you'll need to boot from EBS & do your own mappings there.

The blog post (http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/09/new-amazon-ec2-micro-instances.html) links through to some doc s that may help ;p.

An m1.small might be an easier starting point (until you get your head around things) as you don't need to do any mounting ;p.

hopefully that helps a little there,

thanks,

mark

--

Mark Bate

Wrestler of Crocodiles and Infrastructure

Mekentosj Inc.

email: ma...@mekentosj.com

twitter: @markbate