Landscape 1.3, the upgraded semi-proprietary Ubuntu systems management and monitoring service just released by Canonical, Ubuntu's commercializer, lets users start, stop and manage Ubuntu Server instances on Amazon EC2.

The widgetry, previously reserved for managing multiple physical PCs or servers running Ubuntu, can now be used to choose Ubuntu images pre-configured by Canonical with a Landscape client on EC2.

Canonical says it can manage both physical and virtual machines and all virtual machines can be managed and monitored on EC2 the same way as physical ones. It can also deploy applications from the Ubuntu repository or a user's own repository.

Landscape comes free as part of the commercial support package, which runs from $250-$2,750 a year, or as a standalone service priced at $150 per node, with discounting available on larger volumes.

There's a 60-day trial at www.canonical.com/landscape/register with full access to all Landscape features to manage up to five machines.

The next rev of Ubuntu coming in October is supposed to include the freebie Eucalyptus, which will let folks create their own private EC2-compatible clouds and move workloads between them and Amazon. Landscape will presumably do the managing.