

Manage Amazon EC2 With New Web-Based AWS Management Console - timf
http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2009/01/manage-amazon-ec2-with-new-webbased-console.html

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dcurtis
Wow, this console is actually really awesome. It's the first non-command line
based tool package that I'll actually be using. I was surprised when they
launched AWS that they didn't have something like this in the beginning. The
service seems complete now.

The learning curve is now reduced to a level where normal people can figure
out how to use AWS in under an hour.

~~~
thorax
If you like this, you probably want to check out Rightscale's free package:

<http://www.rightscale.com/>

It's not as ajaxy, but RightScale's stuff can do a good bit more than Amazon's
EC2 dashboard. Honestly, I was hoping Amazon would create something at least
as good as free RightScale when I read this-- but it feels a bit worse than
what most of us have been using for a good while.

This interface does look slick, though-- if they get it caught up in
functionality I'd probably use it over RS. The release of this tool might
reduce RightScale's valuation a tad since it does kind of indicate that
Amazon's not in the market to buy someone like them.

~~~
dcurtis
Rightscale's UI is horrendous. It is so bad that I would rather use the
command line tools.

~~~
thorax
? Are we seeing the same UI? I'm not the world's biggest fan of the UI, but
I've worked with much worse. It's a very deep web app, so it'd be a shame if
startups dismiss a free tool because of a comment like that.

Maybe I've just been using it for so long that I've gotten used to it? At the
time we started using it, it was the only dashboard that interfaced with all
of the core AWS services. We happen to use a good bit of SQS and S3, so being
able to browse those from time to time has been handy and prevented our team
from having to write some of those tools ourselves.

Hopefully we'll all win and Amazon will upgrade their tool to have lots more
features.

------
timf
One major highlight: "The console provides access via your Amazon username and
password. No more certificates or public/secret keys to manage"

~~~
delano
This seems like a really bad idea to me.

~~~
mdasen
I'd be inclined to agree except that anyone with your Amazon email/pass
already has access to your public/secret keys. So, it's not much of a security
hole since a person with your account details could simply log in and grab
your keys.

Still, it would be nice if Amazon offered a "high security" option that didn't
trust password authentication and couldn't re-give you your secret key. I
probably wouldn't use it, but it's still a good thing to offer.

~~~
timf
> " _a "high security" option that didn't trust password authentication and
> couldn't re-give you your secret key_ "

And no way to reset it? What if you have VMs currently running that need to be
stopped ($$)? And if there's a reset then it's the same thing as your point,
anyone with your password has access (unless you're thinking email but that's
worse than the current https delivery of secret keys IMO).

I like the idea in spirit.

I also think they would do well with a delegation of rights model (that
included limited delegation). Any of these portals (Rightscale etc.) need you
to upload your full credentials for anything to work.

------
timf
In the next few days we'll see comparisons from all the external EC2 portal
efforts, forced now to highlight only their 'value add'.

It's always interesting to see where AWS is willing to step on the toes of all
of the 3rd parties building enabling tools. And who they let in to their
private betas (with EBS, some people were publicly feeling dissed).

~~~
wmf
Look at it the other way: What if Amazon was planning a Web console all along?
Should they give up because someone beat them to it? If a third party
implements a feature (persistent storage, load balancing, HA, auto-scaling),
should Amazon be blocked from building that feature?

~~~
timf
I agree, it's not indecent of them or anything (unless maybe they outright
lied to someone about it; it's very hard to speculate about these things from
the outside anyhow).

------
bkrausz
Tips the scale more in favor of AWS in my decision (
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=419460> ), though it already seemed to be
in favor of them anyway...

------
zach
This is great for occasional users to check anywhere that they haven't left a
stray instance running, especially if they start them via scripts. I, of
course, have totally discovered that only after getting the bill a week and a
half later...

------
siculars
i've been a big proponent of aws in general and ec2 in specific. this move by
amazon just underlines their willingness to broaden their products appeal. and
broaden ec2's appeal it will. frankly, a majority of people who read this site
know how to get ec2 running via a command line. however, if for no other
reason than showing your non-tech clients how ec2 functions graphically, this
is an obvious win to the non tech among us.

go amazon! great job. (yaya ec2 web gui exists already - but its not directly
from amazon so you lose a bunch of people in translation)

------
seiji
Their interface is YUI + jQuery: <https://aws-
portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/css/all.js>

~~~
dmix
Is that really necessary?

Aren't there plugins to cover the gaps between the two frameworks?

~~~
zmimon
It actually makes a lot of sense.

JQuery is a pleasure to use for general UI manipulation, but (to my mind) it
just doesn't have the consistency and quality of YUI when it comes to UI
widgets / framework. And honestly, it will always be hard for a framework
developed as plugins by a diverse group of people to compete in this regard
with a full stack framework where every single widget is developed by a crowd
of people under the same roof - you get the same look and feel to exacting
standards with features most of us don't even want to think about built in
(eg: ARIA etc.).

Why not use YUI for doing general ajax work? Well, it's API is horribly
verbose, to borrow a term from Zed Shaw, it's "autistic". I can't imagine why
they really thought it was a good idea to make it that way but they did. So
combining the two makes a lot of sense to me.

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thomasmallen
I can't wait to use this. Elastic Fox is solid, but definitely feels clunky.

------
timf
video tour: <http://media.amazonwebservices.com/console/AwsConsole.html>

~~~
seiji
The tour assumes you've never heard of EC2 before. It is astonishingly painful
to watch.

~~~
bprater
Speaking of painful, most of the video is about using PuTTY. Egads.

