Deploying an instance

The CloudFormation template that accompanies this lab requires the ability to create IAM Roles and IAM Instance Profiles. If the account you are using does not have these capabilities, you will not be able to complete this lab.

Deploy CloudFormation Template

  1. Download the WindowsMachineDeploy.yaml CloudFormation template to your machine.

  2. Go to the AWS CloudFormation console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation and click Create Stack > With new resources Images/CFNCreateStackButton

  3. Leave Prepare template setting as-is

    • For Template source select Upload a template file
    • Click Choose file and supply the CloudFormation template you downloaded: WindowsMachineDeploy.yaml CFNUploadTemplateFile

  4. Click Next

  5. For Stack name use WindowsMachineDeploy

  6. Parameters

    • Look over the Parameters and their default values.

    • Stack name – Use WindowsMachineDeploy (case sensitive)

    • VPCImportName - The VPC that we will deploy to. This will default to the name of the VPC you created in the previous step.

    • InstanceAMI – This will auto-populate with the latest version of the Windows 2019 Base AMI

    • InstanceType - Instance Type, defaults to t3.large but can use any size supported by Windows in the region you have chosen

    • MetricAggregationInterval - How often should the Windows CloudWatch Agent send data into CloudWatch. No need to change this.
    • MetricCollectionInterval - How often should the CloudWatch Agent collect information from the Operating System. No need to change this.
    • PrimaryNodeLabel - The additional label assigned to the EC2 instance to use for searching within CloudWatch Explorer
    • Click Next

  7. For Configure stack options we recommend configuring tags, which are key-value pairs, that can help you identify your stacks and the resources they create. For example, enter Owner in the left column which is the key, and your email address in the right column which is the value. We will not use additional permissions or advanced options so click Next. For more information, see Setting AWS CloudFormation Stack Options .

  8. For Review

    • Review the contents of the page
    • At the bottom of the page, select I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources with custom names
    • Click Create stack CFNIamCapabilities

  9. This will take you to the CloudFormation stack status page, showing the stack creation in progress.

    • Click on the Events tab
    • Scroll through the listing. It shows the activities performed by CloudFormation (newest events at top), such as starting to create a resource and then completing the resource creation.
    • Any errors encountered during the creation of the stack will be listed in this tab. StackCreationStarted

  10. When it shows status CREATE_COMPLETE, then you are finished with this step.

This template will take between 10-15 minutes to fully deploy using a t3.large. A smaller instance size may take longer.