Tools for AWS

TOOLS
AWS provides command line tools to control EC2 instances [16, 17]. These are Java based tools for manipulating the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) and API tools for operations related to rebundling images, registering etc. The Amazon EC2 AMI Tools are command-line utilities to help bundle an AMI, create an AMI from an existing machine or installed volume, and upload a bundled AMI to Amazon S3 [17]. The API tools serve as the client interface to the Amazon EC2 web service and are used to register and launch instances, manipulate security groups etc. [11].

Additionally, a free plug-in called AWS Toolkit for Eclipse allows developers to develop, deploy, and debug Java applications using Amazon Web Services [26]. The AWS Toolkit for Eclipse, based on the Eclipse Web Tools Platform, guides Java developers through common workflows and automates tool configuration, such as setting up remote debugger connections and managing Tomcat containers. The steps to configure Tomcat servers, run applications on Amazon EC2, and debug the software remotely are now done seamlessly through the Eclipse IDE.

ElasticFox is a GUI extension for Mozilla Firefox 2.x that allows users to perform the same functions as those performed by the EC2 AMI and API tools [27]. ElasticFox also integrates functions for performing actions related to EBS. S3Fox Organizer is a similar GUI-based tool related to S3, that allows one to upload objects to S3, create and destroy buckets as well as making file and folder management easy for S3 [28]. S3Fox also enables access control to be defined to objects in various buckets.

AWS Management Console is another web based tool that allows manipulations of all the Amazon services [29]. It allows users to start/stop EC2 instances, attach/detach EBS volumes, create snapshots, pre-load an EBS volume with a snapshot or a dataset, create security groups, bundle images, look for new AMIs, and a plethora of other such functions. A similar tool, called Cloud Studio is also used by enterprises to manage their AWS Cloud [30].

Cloud42 is another GUI-based management as a service solution to Amazon Cloud Computing [31]. Cloud42 allow management of EC2 resources and provides additional functionality to administrate EC2 AMIs and instances. Apart from the GUI Cloud42 offers a well-designed Web service interface which allows invocation of several functionalities from within other applications or even to orchestrate EC2 instances using BPEL processes. The tool features some enhanced functionalities like transferring files between your computing cloud or from an AWS S3 bucket. Furthermore, it is possible to remotely execute arbitrary commands on a running EC2 server instance only by using the GUI or the Web service interface. It also provides a notification mechanism that can be used to subscribe any kind of endpoint to event messages sent from EC2 instances according to the publish/subscribe pattern.

JungleDisk [32] is another tool that provides reliable online backup and storage powered by Amazon S3 and Rackspace