Create a windows instance on Amazon EC2

Question

I am not being lazy here, but just want to make sure I don't pay any money to Amazon by accident.:)

I just signed up for a Amazon Web Service account and created a windows instance. In the Request Instances Wizard, I chose

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server Express and IIS

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Datacenter edition, 64-bit architecture, Microsoft SQLServer 2008 Express, Internet Information Services 7, ASP.NET 3.5.

Root Device Size: 30 GB 64 bit

This guy has a yellow star on it, which indicates it is free tier eligible.

Here are my questions:

• Do I get charged for RDP to my instance?
• Do I get charged for intern access and download stuff inside my instance?
• "These free tiers are only available to new AWS customers, and are available for 12 months following your AWS sign-up date." "These free tiers do not expire after 12 months and are available to both existing and new AWS customers indefinitely." I copied 2 sentences from Amazon site. Which one should I believe?....
• Do I get charged for install softwares like java and tomcat in my instance?

What's more:

• How do I transfer files from my local box to my instance?....

Answer 1

You are not charged for RDP, you are charged for internet access but only for outgoing packets, you can install java for free yourself and you can transfer files to the instance by doing copy-paste over RDP or by uploading it via network share, FTP etc. When you download files to Amazon EC2, you are charged approx. 1/24 of the traffic, so if you download 24GB, you will be charged for only 1GB. The free virtual machines expire after 1 year.