Last week I have tried to install SharePoint 2010 Beta on Amazon Cloud. It was not possible because at this time Amazon was not supporting Windows Server 2008. Today I have read news from Amazon AWS:
Wow! So let’s try to install SharePoint 2010 on it. And it works!
Below you will find all steps you have to follow and you will need about 1 hour for the installation.
1- You need an EC2 Account by Amazon
2- Go to the AWS Management Console (Beta)
3- Start a new instance. Be aware about the region. I’ve started my server in Europe West.
4- The Windows Server 2008 is not available as standard AMI Image, so switch to Community AMI and choose
amazon/Windows-Server2008-x86_64-SqlExpressMultiLang-v1
P.S: Thanks to Helmut for the hint about the new version of the image ( see comment about the problems with the version 1.0). So please use the v101, in my case ami-91ebc0e5
amazon/Windows-Server2008-x86_64-SqlExpressMultiLang-v101
I guess you just want to evaluate SharePoint 2010 and not to build a productive server on a beta version. So embedded SQL Express 2008 Server works for you perfect.
5- Define the number of instances to 1 and define the security group. Here you need to allow the security group to access Remote Desktop – RDP on Port 3389
6- After you instance is running, download the password for you new server. Select you instance and click on “Get windows Admin Password”. The password is encrypted so you need you private key which you will receive from Amazon during you account activation. Please notice that it will last for about 5 minutes after start of a new instance until you will be able to get your password. Be patient :- )
7- Now you can connect to you server with Remote Desktop using the public DNS name of you server
8- Now we are on the server, so open IE and download SharePoint 2010 from the technet site. Please select the English Version!
http://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/evalcenter/ee388573.aspx
Please select the Enterprise CAL version. To be able to download you must add this site http://*.microsoft.com to the Trusted Sites
9- The download 0f 561 MB are very fast! So you need about 4 minutes!
10- The Amazon Image has the Power Shell Version 1.0 on it. You need to remove this feature at first. Go to control panel and click on Programs and features to remove it.
11- We also need the KB971831 Patch for Windows Server
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/KB971831/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=3235
Download and install it
12- Now we can start the installation of the SharePoint Server 2010 Beta. Click on the OfficeServer.exe which we have download before.
13- The first step: Install software prerequisites:
14- And then “Install SharePoint Server”. Please select the “Stand Alone” Version!
15- Enter your Product Key. You will find the MAK for example here:
16- And now wait for until the installation finished!
17- And start the configuration Wizard
18- Done!!!!
19- The SharePoint Server is running. An IE Site pops up. Please enter your server Administrator credentials
20- And here we go. Our first site:
Enjoy!
Last but not least! What is the price tag on it?
See my bill after 2 hours of using. For 64Bit system you have to use at least the “Large instance”.
So for a month you have to pay about 350$ for the server and additional fee for the transfer.
For testing it is not the perfect price but if you consider a productive system without cost for IT maintenance, so it is very nice price.
In the next time I would like to compare it to Azure but at the moment it is not possible.
