Managing AWS with powershell - part 1

So, as ironic as it may be, EC2 is significantly faster and easier to use than Azure. Like.. 2 minutes vs 15 per server faster. Not only that, to get Azure powershell running, you need to download 200 megs of crap, including SQL server lite, hello kitty theme, and aol 2.5. Amazon on the other hand is a 5 meg download which includes a couple of powershell cmdlets for managing all of Amazon... it does have a few caveats.

Get your creds automated

Set-AWSCredentials 

note: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/powershell/latest/userguide/pstools-appendix-signup.html 

note: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/powershell/latest/userguide/specifying-your-aws-credentials.html 

How to get AMI name for creating a server 

(Get-EC2ImageByName windows_2008_base).imageid

How to create a server:

New-EC2Instance -imageid <ami-monkeys> -mincount 1 -maxcount 1 -keyname monkeys -instancetype m1.medium

How to get connection information for the box (or 20 boxes) you've just cooked up 

$a = Get-EC2Instance

$b = $a | ?{$_.reservationid -like "whatever is the reservation you got from new-EC2Instance"}

$b.RunningInstance | select PublicDnsName, ipaddress, privateipaddres

How to get password for the node you just made?

Get-EC2PasswordData -InstanceId $c.RunningInstance.instanceid -PemFile 'C:\Users\monkeys\monkey.pem'
or in case of multiple boxes just make a loop

With all of the above said, and as awesome as AWS is, there is a horrible horrible default which makes absolutely no sense:

help New-EC2Instance -full

-MinCount <System.Decimal?>

Minimum number of instances to launch.  If the value is more than Amazon EC2 can launch,  no instances are launched at all.

         Constraints: Between 1 and the maximum number  allowed for your account (default: 20).

-MaxCount <System.Decimal?>

Maximum number of instances to launch.  If the value is more than Amazon EC2 can launch, the largest possible  number above minCount will be launched instead.

         Constraints:  Between 1 and the maximum number allowed for your account  (default: 20).