Does a cloud service like Azure or EC2 exist which can run arbitrary workloads? (e.g. Client SKUs of Windows)

Question

Azure and EC2 are optimized for running servers. Lots and lots of servers. Both platforms attempt to manage tons of things for you -- in Azure's case, it wants to manage even the target operating system.

However, I'd like to use such a service for a different reason: Testing.

I've got a ton of operating systems I need to support. My tests don't actually take that long, but running them on every platform is time-consuming. I was going to just use a cloud service for this, thinking that these machines would be running for much less than an hour, and it wouldn't cost all that much.

The problem is that the major cloud services won't run client versions of Windows -- Windows Server only.

Is there a cloud service which would let me run every client and server version, and every service pack level, of Windows, released starting with Windows 2000 SP4 to the present day?

Answer 1

Now, Azure and AWS both let you upload your own Window's ISO file. 

You have two options (using AWS):

1. Create your own EC2 AMI and create it using the custom AMI option. Check out this link for more - https://forums.aws.amazon.com/message.jspa?messageID=192226

2. Amazon WorkSpaces can be used. You can bring your own Window's licenses and get a 16% discount. https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/