Instance configuration on remote platforms

A system, comprising one or more computing devices configured to:

• receive, at a provider network implementing a plurality of network-accessible services, a platform approval request comprising an indication of one or more candidate platforms for hosting virtualized resources;
• initiate, in response to the platform approval request, a capability determination operation on a particular candidate platform of the one or more candidate platforms;
• designate, based at least in part on a result of the capability determination operation, the particular candidate platform as an approved platform to be used for hosting virtualized resources that are to be configured at least in part via one or more control servers of the provider network;
• and
• issue, from a particular control server of the one or more control servers, in response to a resource request from a client, one or more configuration commands to configure a particular virtualized resource at the approved platform using a remote command executor instantiated at the approved platform.

A non-transitory computer-accessible storage medium storing program instructions that when executed on one or more processors implement a control server of a provider network, wherein the control server is configured to:

• after receipt of an instance configuration request from a client, directed to a network-accessible service implemented at least in part using resource instances whose configuration is managed from within the provider network,
• determine whether one or more configuration operations corresponding to the instance configuration request are to be performed at a remote platform external to the provider network;
• in response to determining that the one or more configuration operations are to be performed at a remote platform external to the provider network,
• issue one or more commands to a selected remote platform external to the provider network;
• and
• receive, from the selected remote platform, results of the one or more commands;
• in response to determining that the one or more configuration operations are not to be performed at a remote platform external to the provider network,
• issue one or more commands to a selected instance host within the provider network;
• receive, from the selected instance host, results of the one or more commands;
• and
• provide a response to the instance configuration request, based at least in part on results of the one or more commands, to the client.

A non-transitory computer-accessible storage medium storing program instructions that when executed on one or more processors:

• receive a platform approval request indicating a third party platform to be considered as a candidate to host one or more virtualized resources;
• identify one or more capability tests to be executed on the third party platform, including at least one test to check whether a remote command executor configured to support a particular command protocol can be implemented on the third party platform;
• initiate an execution of the one or more capability tests on the third party platform;
• and
• determine whether to approve the third party platform based at least in part on results of the one or more capability tests.