In this section, we will learn how to install the AWS Toolkit plugin in Eclipse. Go to the Eclipse menu's Help | Eclipse Marketplace.... Search for the AWS Toolkit:

Install the plugin. We will see many features of this plugin later in this chapter. Visit http://docs.aws.amazon.com/toolkit-for-eclipse/v1/user-guide/welcome.html for the complete documentation.

We need to configure the plugin with the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key we created in the previous section. Open Eclipse Preferences and go to AWS Toolkit preferences:

 

You can use the default profile or create a new profile. Enter the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key and click the Apply and Close button. This information will be used by the Eclipse plugin to access information about your configuration in AWS.

Once the authentication is successful, you can access most of the information that you can on the AWS Console web page from within Eclipse. Switch to the AWS Management perspective (select Window | Perspective | Open Perspective or click the Open Perspective toolbar button in the upper-right corner):

Expand the Amazon EC2 category in AWS Explorer and you will see options for viewing EC2 AMIs, EC2 Instances, and more. Amazon Machine Image (AMI) can be considered a template from which multiple VM instances can be created.