Amazon Web Services for the people: the GUI tools

In the beginning, there was the command line. And then Amazon Web Services's EC2 solution could be configured and controlled using a number of in-house and third-party GUI (Graphical User Interface) tools. Enter the free browser add-on Elastic Fox, the commercially distributed applications RightScale and Elastra, and finally, Amazon's own AWS (Amazon Web Services) Management Console.

Amazon Web Services is the collective name for a global computing platform, which enables users to run virtual machines and to store data in the cloud. As powerful as this cloud platform is, does it provide the interface tools for easy administration?

Elastic Fox is restricted to Firefox, and provides basic Amazon EC2 management features within the browser. It allows user to list available Amazon Machine Images (or AMIs--basically virtualized server instances), launch new AMIs, manage security groups and launch permissions associated with the instances, and manage Amazon EBS volumes.

RightScale and Elastra add features beyond what is available with the freeware tools.

AWS Management Console, currently in beta and available for free use, is Amazon's own answer to the challenge of providing a user-friendly interface to its cloud computing service. The console is a browser based, point-and-click dashboard, which runs in all major web browsers. In terms of features, the experts agree it is an important step towards making an easier job of deploying web applications in the cloud.

InfoWorld is running a more detailed review of AWS Management Console. Their conclusion? "It provides 90 percent of what you need for deploying cloud machines."

Amazon is trying to expand the AWS Management Console into a unified interface for all its cloud services: "The initial release of the AWS Management Console provides a graphical user interface for Amazon EC2, with additional Amazon infrastructure services scheduled to be added to the console in the coming months."

Currently, third-party solutions, such as JungleDisk, provide mainstream consumers with an easy and trouble-free access to other components of Amazon Web Services--in the case of JungleDisk, the S3 cloud storage platform.