I'm looking for a Windows hosting provider that supports custom os images (like AMZN EC2) [closed]

Question

I've come to love Amazon's EC2 service and I'm looking for something similar that supports the ability to save a running Windows server image and start new instances from it.

I contacted GoGrid (the feature is planned in future) and Mosso (no joy)

Anyone know of any hosting/cloud providers that can dothis?

Answer 1

I have just received a message from Amazon to the effect that that they will be supporting Windows Server on EC2 this fall.

Wahaay!!

Answer 2

Seems like dealing with licensing issues would be nightmarish for the host.

Answer 3

I can't see how licensing would be any different than for a co-lo provider.

Answer 4

GoGrid as announced to offer the feature this fall. Look at http://www.flexihost.co.uk and http://www.elastichosts.com (both in the UK) as well as http://www.appnexus.com.

I have heard that www.rightscale.com (it's kind of a nice interface to EC2 hosting) will support Windows sometime in the future.

With a lot of manual tweaking you can already run Windows on EC2 using virtualization inside a Linux virtual machine: http://www.howtoforge.com/amazon_elastic_compute_cloud_qemu

I have a short list of cloud hosting companies on my website: http://hotware.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/a-short-cloud-hosting-link-list/

Answer 5

AT&T's Synaptic Hosting allows this, though I'm sure you'll pay through the nose, as it's "enterprise".