Posted On: Nov 24, 2020

Amazon Systems Manager Automation now supports executing scripts and adding technical user documentation to standardize and share your operational playbooks to ensure consistency across all users, accounts, and Regions. With pre-built Automation playbooks, you don’t need to navigate between procedures in wikis and executing terminal commands to complete your operational tasks.  

DevOps engineers can now run Python and PowerShell scripts in a managed compute environment. Automation supports adding these scripts inline or as attachments. For example, you can filter for unencrypted EBS snapshots, generate a report, get approval, and encrypt them. In the new added feature, Automation supports extending your execution environment by attaching the necessary packages. For example, you can run your Hashicorp Packer templates for AMI building using the new Amazon published playbook, Amazon Web Services-RunPacker. Automation playbooks also support rich-text descriptions for each step, using familiar Wiki markdown formatting to help guide operators. You can also use scripts in combination with existing Automation actions, such as getting approvals, calling Amazon APIs, or running commands on your Amazon EC2 instances.  

Building your own playbook automation is easy using a new playbook builder. The user interface guides you through the process of building a custom playbook. You don’t need to be experienced in Automation’s JSON/Yaml format to use the playbook builder.  

Systems Manager enables visibility and control of your cloud and on-premises infrastructure. It simplifies resource and application management, shortens the mean time to resolution (MTTR) for operational problems, and makes it easier to operate and manage your infrastructure securely at scale. 

The Amazon Systems Manager Automation feature is available in Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) Region operated by Sinnet and Amazon Web Services China (Ningxia) Region operated by NWCD. This feature is priced on a pay-per-use model. See the Amazon Systems Manager pricing page for details.  

For more information about Automation, visit the Amazon Systems Manager product page, Documentation and getting started guide