I was looking for a simple way to deploy files from a machine running Visual Studio to an EC2 instance hosting IIS. My goal was to code-deploy-test / code-deploy-test into AWS. Simple was good.
Several options presented themselves including SFTP and CodeDeploy, but I happened across an option that really suited my needs for the moment.
The following assumes that you’ve installed the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio available here. You’ll know that it’s installed because in Visual Studio, the View menu has AWS Explorer option.
In AWS Explorer, expand the Amazon EC2 node and then double-click on Instances. You’ll see a window complete with your running instances. Right-click on the desired instance and choose Open Remote Desktop from the context menu. Note the Map local drives on remote desktop checkbox. Make certain that’s checked and continue to log on.
In my particular case, I named the machine that launches Remote Desktop quite distinctively. When I RDP into the EC2 instance and launch Windows Explorer, I see the following and can traverse the directory structure on “Wyoming”.
On the EC2 instance, I happen to be running my favorite deployment tool, Beyond Compare, available from Scooter Software. From there I can use my favorite “Compare Contents…” to determine what’s changed and what needs to be deployed.
While not the optimal solution for a multi-server environment, it is a very easy-to-implement solution for a development environment where the goal is code-deploy-test, rinse, repeat.
Enjoy!
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