Amazon WorkSpaces Cheat Sheet

• A fully-managed, secure cloud desktop service.

Features

• You can create a standalone, managed directory for users, or you can integrate it with your existing Active Directory environment so that your users can use their current credentials to obtain seamless access to corporate resources.
• WorkSpaces provides a persistent desktop.

• Offers a range of bundles that provide different hardware and software options to meet your needs. A bundle is a combination of both that image and the hardware from which a WorkSpace can be launched.
• You can bring your existing Windows 7 and Windows 10 Desktop licenses to Amazon WorkSpaces and run them on hardware that is physically dedicated to you.
• Whether you choose to launch one or many WorkSpaces, all you need to do is to choose the bundles that best meet the needs of your users, and the number of WorkSpaces that you would like to launch.
• WorkSpaces provides a high-quality desktop experience that helps you meet compliance and security requirements, including HIPAA-eligibility, SOC, FedRAMP, and PCI compliance.
• WorkSpaces allows you to use your on-premises Microsoft Active Directory to manage your WorkSpaces and your end user credentials.
• WorkSpaces provides each user with access to varying amounts of persistent storage (SSD Volumes) in the AWS cloud based on the bundle selected. Data that users store on the ‘user volume’ attached to the WorkSpace is automatically backed up to S3 on a regular basis.
• Users can also use Amazon WorkDocs Drive.
• WorkSpaces incorporates PC-over-IP (PCoIP) technology to provide a secure experience.
• WorkSpaces supports the sharing of images across AWS accounts.
• Deploy and manage applications for your WorkSpaces by using Amazon WorkSpaces Application Manager.
• By default, users can personalize their WorkSpaces with their favorite settings for items such as wallpaper, icons, shortcuts, etc. An administrator can lock down a WorkSpace.
• By default, users are configured as local administrators of their WorkSpaces.
• The user volume on a WorkSpace is backed up every 12 hours.
• Each user you provision a WorkSpace for needs to exist in a directory, but you do not have to provision a directory yourself.
• To ensure that your data is preserved, the volume sizes of either volume cannot be reduced after a WorkSpace is launched. You can increase the size of the root and user volumes attached to your WorkSpaces at any time.

Amazon WorkSpaces Pricing

• You are charged based on the bundle type and the number of Amazon WorkSpaces you launch.
• WorkSpaces provides the flexibility to pay monthly or hourly.
  • With monthly billing, you pay a fixed monthly fee for unlimited usage during the month, which is best for workers who use their Amazon WorkSpace full-time or as their primary desktop.
  • With hourly billing, you pay a small fixed monthly fee per WorkSpace to cover infrastructure costs and storage, and a low hourly rate for each hour the WorkSpace is used during the month.

Amazon WorkSpaces Cheat Sheet References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/latest/adminguide/
https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/
https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/faqs/