In the cloud market, Amazon Web Services Inc. is the largest public cloud provider, accounting for nearly 50% of the entire market, according to global analyst Gartner Inc. Yet, until last year’s introduction of FSx for Windows, managing Windows-based applications on AWS Cloud storage was a complicated process.

This year, AWS announced a raft of new features, including additions to FSx that make managing Windows file systems even simpler.

Edward Naim (pictured), general manager, FSx, at Amazon Web Services Inc., spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Storage Boston event in Boston, Massachusetts. They discussed the benefits of FSx for Windows and some of the new FSx features announced at Storage Day 2019. (* Disclosure below.)

[Editor’s note: The following answers have been condensed for clarity.]

Why did AWS launch FSx for Windows file server?

Naim: We did it because customers asked us to do it. They were tired of all of the effort and overhead in managing Windows file systems and Windows file servers on their own. They just didn’t want to have to do all that heavy lifting. AWS is the cloud that has the most Windows workloads running on it. So, it was very natural for customers to ask us as they’re moving their Windows workloads onto AWS to have a file system that’s fully managed for them that can be accessed by those workloads.

How are customers using FSx for Windows? 

Naim: They’re using it for a really broad spectrum of workloads. So everything from traditional user shares and home directories to development environments to analytics workloads to video transcoding. So, it’s a very wide spectrum of workloads that are on the service, and we’re continuing to see new types of workloads every day.

What are some of the new announcements around FSx for Windows file service? 

Naim: One of the significant ones that we launched was the ability for customers to use their self-managed active directories and join their FSx file systems to those. So we now have two options: Customers can use an AWS fully managed active directory or their own with FSx.

We also launched a number of capabilities around access from on-premises. For example, customers can now access their file systems over direct connect connections or virtual private network. So, they can access Windows file systems from computers and from end-users that are running on-premises.

Sell me on why I should move my data to the cloud? 

Naim: We like to think of it as a no-brainer because we are fully managing everything for the customer. The service is built on top of Windows server. So, it provides a fully compatible Windows file system, and we manage that fully for customers. So, you get complete compatibility with server message block protocol, complete compatibility with NTFS file system semantics and features. It’s a very simple move for customers to move their existing workloads onto the service and have it be fully managed.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Storage Boston event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Storage Boston event. Neither AWS Storage, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE