Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that the AWS Marketplace now supports Windows-based software and other new software categories including Big Data solutions. AWS Marketplace is an online store that makes it easy for customers to find, compare, and immediately start using the software they need to build products and run their businesses. Customers can now quickly discover and 1-Click deploy software products running on Windows Server to the AWS Cloud, including well-known business intelligence, database, and hosting solutions. As with all products in the AWS Marketplace, customers pay only for what they use and can scale their software up or down as needed. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances running Windows Server, include 2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2, and 2012 editions, and as with all Amazon EC2 Windows instances, customers have the option of enterprise-class support and updates, while taking advantage of the security, scalability, and pay-as-you-go pricing of AWS. To learn more about the AWS Marketplace, visit http://aws.amazon.com/marketplace.
Windows users will now be able to find, deploy, and start using popular application infrastructure, development tools, and business software in minutes. These customers can use the AWS Marketplace to easily search and filter for Windows-compatible software, compare pricing across different server types, and launch in the AWS region of their choice. AWS Marketplace’s 1-Click deployment lets customers start their software in minutes, automating the provisioning of hardware, and simplifying the deployment and configuration of software. Software charges appear on customers’ existing AWS bills, and AWS consolidates payments through one pipeline – there’s no need to set up and manage new accounts for every software product. With no servers to purchase and configure, and no complicated software deployment process, AWS is making it simple and easy to use Windows-based software.
A selection of popular Windows Server software is now available in the AWS Marketplace including products from Parallels Software, MicroStrategy, and Quest Software. Parallels Software is offering Plesk Panel, a widely used hosting control panel solution; MicroStrategy is helping customers quickly build business dashboards with their MicroStrategy 9.3 business intelligence platform; and Quest Software is making available their Toad database productivity software which helps customers support Oracle, SQL Server and MySQL databases running on AWS.
Windows ISVs and software resellers can now list their software in the AWS Marketplace and sell their solutions to hundreds of thousands of active AWS customers around the world. AWS Marketplace can reduce the time to discover, purchase and deploy software dramatically, shortening it from days (or weeks or months) to minutes compared to traditional sales cycles. ISVs and resellers also benefit by having all billing, collections, and disbursements automatically handled by AWS, with software revenue deposited directly into the software vendor’s or reseller’s account. This includes the ability to support pay-as-you-go pricing with minimal additional programming effort: sellers simply set the pricing for their software by instance size, and AWS tracks usage and calculates the bill. ISVs can version products and the AWS Marketplace can help notify customers when new versions are available.
“Offering customers choice for their cloud infrastructure and enabling open development is a priority for us, which is why we’re excited to provide our Toad solution for on-demand use across managed databases,” said Michael Sotnick, Vice President of Worldwide Channels and Alliances for Quest Software (now part of Dell). “We deliver value to the AWS ecosystem today through our freeware edition that enables more than two million developers to easily leverage Toad for Oracle, Toad for SQL Server and Toad for MySQL within the AWS cloud.”
“We have customers who require an easy, fast method to get our Plesk Control Panel up and running,” said John Zanni, Vice President of Marketing and alliances, Parallels. “The integrated billing, including software in the AWS Marketplace, makes using AWS efficient and effective. Being able to tap into the AWS user base is a really attractive strategy to broaden our customer reach.”
AWS Marketplace now includes a Big Data category for customers who want to analyze large amounts of data and are looking for ways to quickly solve Big Data problems. Customers can now deploy and immediately start using big data technologies such as Couchbase and MongoDB with the click of a button. In addition, AWS Marketplace offers open source operating systems CentOS, Debian and FreeBSD, extending the selection of operating systems available in Marketplace which include Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and Ubuntu.