In order to connect to the EC2 Instances, provisioned within your AWS Account, you need to use a Bastion host.
A Windows Bastion allows you to securely connect to all Windows-based instances, in your account, without exposing the environment to the Internet. Once connected to the bastion host, you can access the other instances in your VPC through Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connections on Windows. The Windows Bastion is also configured with a security group which allows us to limit connections to white-listed IP Addresses only.
Connecting from a Windows Based machine
First, visit the AWS Console and head to the EC2 Dashboard. From here, visit the Instances section, found on the left:
In the Instances section, you should be able to see the "WindowsBastion" instance. Click on this and look for the IPv4 Public IP address.
Next, open the Remote Desktop Connection, on your PC, and type the Public IP noted earlier.
To connect to the Bastion, you will need the credentials found in the SSM Parameter Store (Found in the EC2 Dashboard - https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/v2/home#Parameters:sort=Name). These are stored under "WindowsBastion". If you have forgotten the default user name, please contact a member of our team.
Once connected, open another Remote Desktop Connection window, within the Bastion RDP Session. From here, you can now connect to the Windows instances using their Private IP Addresses and the details found in the SSM Parameter Store.
Note: Bastion hosts are recycled/cleaned often. This means that anything saved or installed on the Bastion is not permanent. We also do not recommend storing passwords or keys on these instances which could be used to access your environment.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to a member of our team.