Get started with user-based subscriptions in License Manager

The following steps detail how you can get started with using user-based subscriptions. These steps assume you have already implemented the required prerequisites. For more information, see the Prerequisites to create user-based subscriptions in License Manager.

Step 1: Subscribe to a product

Microsoft products like Office or Visual Studio require an active subscription before you can associate Active Directory users to an instance that includes those products. Subscription products that are displayed with a Marketplace Subscription Status of Inactive are not subscribed yet.

When you subscribe to a Microsoft user-based subscription product from the AWS Marketplace, License Manager automatically adds a subscription to Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) for your account, if you don't already have one. RDS is required in order to remotely access the graphical desktops and subscription based Windows applications on EC2 instances launched from license-included AMIs.

You can subscribe to your products directly on the AWS Marketplace using the following links:

If you accept the terms, the product subscription will need to be processed. The subscription will have an in progress message until it completes. You can repeat these steps for any other configured products you require. Once all of the required products have an active subscription, you can proceed with subscribing Active Directory users to the products.

Step 2: Register your Active Directory in License Manager

License Manager requires that subscription users are defined in Active Directory in order to associate the users with user-based subscriptions. This can be either an AWS Managed Microsoft AD or a self-managed Active Directory, depending on your subscriptions.

To use Microsoft Office with user-based subscriptions, you must grant License Manager permission to update your VPC configuration. When you configure your VPC, License Manager creates VPC endpoints on your behalf. These endpoints are required for your resources to connect to activation servers and remain in compliance.

You must configure DNS forwarding for any additional VPCs that you register for user-based subscriptions. If you have user-based subscriptions in multiple AWS Regions, each Region must have its own Active Directory with DNS forwarding configured.

Registration steps differ in the console, depending on which products you've subscribed to. If you've subscribed to Win Remote Desktop Services SAL, select the Microsoft RDS SAL tab. If you subscribe to Microsoft Office or Visual Studio and do NOT subscribe to RDS SAL, select the Stand-alone MSO subscriptions tab.

Microsoft RDS SAL

Register AWS Managed Microsoft AD

To register AWS Managed Microsoft AD as your Active Directory for user-based subscriptions, follow these steps:

1. Open the License Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/license-manager/.

2. Navigate to User-based subscriptions under Settings in the left navigation pane.

3. In the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) tab on the User based subscriptions page, choose Register Active Directory.

4. Select the AWS Managed Active Directory option to enter details.

5. Select your managed directory from the AWS Active Directory list, or create a new managed directory and then come back and select it.

6. Choose Register to register your AWS Managed Active Directory.

Register self-managed Active Directory

To register a self-managed Active Directory for user-based subscriptions, follow these steps:

1. Open the License Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/license-manager/.

2. Navigate to User-based subscriptions under Settings in the left navigation pane.

3. In the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) tab on the User based subscriptions page, choose Register Active Directory.

4. Select the Self-managed Active Directory option to enter details.

5. Enter the Active Directory domain, along with primary and secondary private IPv4 addresses for your directory.

6. In the Networking section, select the VPC and two Subnets where your Active Directory resides.

7. Select the administrative credentials Secret that you created as part of the prerequisites for your Microsoft RDS subscription.

Stand-alone MSO subscriptions

Register AWS Managed Microsoft AD

To register AWS Managed Microsoft AD as your Active Directory for user-based Microsoft Office and Visual Studio subscriptions, follow these steps:

1. Open the License Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/license-manager/.

2. Navigate to User-based subscriptions under Settings in the left navigation pane.

3. On the User based subscriptions page, select the tab for the Microsoft Office or Visual Studio subscription product that you want to register, and then choose Register Active Directory.

4. Select your managed directory from the AWS Active Directory list, or create a new managed directory and then come back and select it.

5. Choose Register to register your AWS Managed Active Directory.

When you register your Active Directory, License Manager creates two network interfaces so that the service can communicate with your directory. The network interface will have a description similar to AWS created network interface for LicenseManager <directory_id>.

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• Microsoft RDS SAL
• Stand-alone MSO subscriptions

Register AWS Managed Microsoft AD

To register AWS Managed Microsoft AD as your Active Directory for user-based subscriptions, follow these steps:

1. Open the License Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/license-manager/.

2. Navigate to User-based subscriptions under Settings in the left navigation pane.

3. In the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) tab on the User based subscriptions page, choose Register Active Directory.

4. Select the AWS Managed Active Directory option to enter details.

5. Select your managed directory from the AWS Active Directory list, or create a new managed directory and then come back and select it.

6. Choose Register to register your AWS Managed Active Directory.

Register self-managed Active Directory

To register a self-managed Active Directory for user-based subscriptions, follow these steps:

1. Open the License Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/license-manager/.

2. Navigate to User-based subscriptions under Settings in the left navigation pane.

3. In the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) tab on the User based subscriptions page, choose Register Active Directory.

4. Select the Self-managed Active Directory option to enter details.

5. Enter the Active Directory domain, along with primary and secondary private IPv4 addresses for your directory.

6. In the Networking section, select the VPC and two Subnets where your Active Directory resides.

7. Select the administrative credentials Secret that you created as part of the prerequisites for your Microsoft RDS subscription.

Active Directory registration from the AWS CLI

You can register your Active Directory as the identity provider for user-based subscriptions with the RegisterIdentityProvider operation.

aws license-manager-user-subscriptions register-identity-provider --product "<product-name>" --identity-provider "ActiveDirectoryIdentityProvider={DirectoryId=<directory_id>}"

Configure Active Directory and your VPC for user-based subscriptions (AWS CLI)

You can register your Active Directory as the identity provider and configure your VPC for user-based subscriptions with the RegisterIdentityProvider operation.

aws license-manager-user-subscriptions register-identity-provider --product "<product_name>" --identity-provider "ActiveDirectoryIdentityProvider={DirectoryId=<directory_id>}" --settings "Subnets=[subnet-1234567890abcdef0,subnet-021345abcdef6789],SecurityGroupId=sg-1234567890abcdef0"

For more information about the available software products, see Supported software products for user-based subscriptions in License Manager.

Step 3: Configure RDS license server

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) license server issues Subscriber Access Licenses (SALs) to Active Directory users when they access EC2 instances that provide user-based subscription Microsoft products. After you've completed steps 1 and 2, you can configure your license server, as follows.

Ensure that you've completed the User-based subscription prerequisites for RDS before you begin. This process assumes that you have already set up your Active Directory.

Step 4: Launch an instance to provide user-based subscriptions

After you have subscribed to a product, you must launch instances for your users to connect to from the AWS Marketplace AMI that includes the product. After you launch an instance, AWS Systems Manager attempts to join the instance to the Active Directory domain and perform additional configuration and hardening on the resource. The configurations to make the instance ready to use can take around 20 minutes to complete. You can confirm the resource is ready to use from the User association page of the License Manager console by checking for a Health status of Active for the instance.

To launch an instance with user-based subscriptions, see Launch an instance from a license included AMI.

Step 5: Associate users to a user-based subscription instance

Once you have subscribed to the required product’s AWS Marketplace AMI, you can subscribe users to a product and associate them to an instance that provides the product. You can subscribe users to products and associate them with an instance in a single step, or separately. When you subscribe a user, the directory is checked to ensure that the user identity is present. One subscription is created for each user you subscribe to the product.

Each user must have a subscription to both Windows Server Remote Desktop Services Subscriber Access License (RDS SAL) and the product they will use.

When your account has subscribed to RDS SAL as detailed in Step 1: Subscribe to a product, License Manager automatically subscribes the users in your Active Directory to RDS SAL when they subscribe to a user-based subscription product.

For more information about subscription charges and billing, see Subscription charges in License Manager.

The Products page in License Manager displays active subscriptions by listing their Marketplace subscription status as Active. In the product details page, License Manager displays active user subscriptions with a Status of Subscribed.