AWS Toolkit for Microsoft Visual Studio FAQs

Q: What is the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio?

The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio is an extension for Microsoft Visual Studio that makes it easier for developers to develop, debug, and deploy .NET applications using Amazon Web Services. With the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio, you’ll be able to get started faster and be more productive when building AWS applications.

Q: What does the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio do?

The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio features:

  • AWS SDK for .NET
  • AWS Explorer
  • AWS CloudFormation Deployment
  • Support for multiple AWS Accounts

AWS SDK for .NET

The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio conveniently includes the AWS SDK for .NET, so you can get started building .NET applications on AWS infrastructure services in Visual Studio, including Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, and Amazon SimpleDB.

  • Start – Easily create new .NET projects with the AWS .NET library by using one of the included project templates, or add the library to an existing project.
  • Develop – Use Visual Studio to build and debug your applications.

AWS Explorer

Easily access and administer your AWS infrastructure, including Amazon S3, Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon EC2, and more while developing your application. The AWS Explorer provides a graphical interface that makes it easy to create, edit, and delete resources.

  • Configure – Create, view, and delete Amazon S3 objects, Amazon SimpleDB items and attributes, Amazon SQS messages, and more.
  • Edit – Add, edit, and delete resources to help build and test your application without leaving Visual Studio.
  • Query – Write Select queries against your data in Amazon SimpleDB and edit the results.

AWS CloudFormation Deployment

Use the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio to develop, debug, then deploy your ASP.NET web applications to AWS using AWS CloudFormation.

  • Develop – Create new .NET web applications using a web application template. Use Visual Studio to build and run your application locally before deploying to AWS with AWS CloudFormation.
  • Deploy – Easily deploy new application versions to your existing AWS CloudFormation stack, then use Amazon EC2 Management in Visual Studio or the AWS Management Console to manage the application.

Q: What versions of Visual Studio do you support?
The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio supports Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition and Visual Studio 2010 Professional Edition and above.

Q: Can I develop and test my application locally?
Yes. You can use Visual Studio and a locally installed version of IIS 7.5 to test your application prior to deploying it with the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio.

Q: What storage options are available to my application?
You can use Amazon S3 or any externally available storage service in your application. The easiest way to use Amazon S3 is through the AWS SDK for .NET.

Q: What types of databases are available to my application?
You can use any database technology you choose. You can choose to use Amazon RDS, Amazon SimpleDB, or run Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or other relational databases on Amazon EC2.

Q: What additional services and features are available to my application?
The AWS SDK for .NET provides an API for including any AWS infrastructure product in your application, including:
  • Messaging - Integrate reliable, highly scalable mobile-to-mobile communication into applications using Amazon SQS, and Amazon SNS. Send bulk and transactional email to customers using Amazon SES.
  • Compute — Launch and manage Amazon EC2 instances with a number of features for building scalable, failure resilient, and enterprise class applications.
  • Monitoring — Monitor your Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon EBS volumes, Elastic Load Balancers, and Amazon RDS database instances in real-time with Amazon CloudWatch.


Q: How can I get the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio?

Download and install the AWS ToolKit for Visual Studio as follows:

  1. Go to the product page.
  2. Click the Download button on the top right corner of the page. Your browser will prompt you to save the file.
  3. Open the saved installer to begin the installation process and follow the on-screen instructions

Q: Where can I find the documentation?

Documentation for AWS CloudFormation and all other AWS products and services are available at http://aws.amazon.com/documentation. Documentation for the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio is available here.


Q: How can I get help with my application?

AWS Premium Support covers issues related to your use of AWS CloudFormation. Please see the AWS Premium Support detail page for further details and pricing. The Windows & .NET Developer forum is a great place to connect with other developers and tap into the breadth of existing AWS community knowledge.

Q: How is the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio licensed?

The AWS Toolkit is licensed under the AWS Customer Agreement (the “License”). You may not use the AWS Toolkits except in compliance with the License. A copy of the License is located at http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/.