All my coding and testing was done in an Eclipse Environment (download here Eclipse Java EE IDE for Web Developers 3.7.2).

Once you have eclipse set up, the next set is to install the AWS Toolkit SDK for Java plugin within Eclipse. The steps are pretty straight forward:

1. Open Help -> Install New Software….
2. Enter http://aws.amazon.com/eclipse in the text box labeled “Work with” at the top of the dialog.
3. Select “AWS Toolkit for Eclipse” from the list below.
4. Click “Next”. Eclipse guides you through the remaining installation steps.
5. When prompted accept the terms of the license agreement & click finish
6. You will get a warning that you are installing software that contains unsigned content. This is normal, just click ok.

Depending on your internet speed, it shouldn’t take you too long to download and install. It took me about 5 minutes to finish and then restart Eclipse.

So Tada! You are on your way to creating an EC2 script!