> Essential > Virtualization > Information for All Virtualized Platforms > Cross-Hypervisor Restores (VM Conversion) > Converting to Amazon EC2 > Converting a VM

Options for Conversion to Amazon EC2

When you restore a VM from a different hypervisor to an Amazon EC2 instance, provide Amazon-specific values for the restore operation.

Restore options

  • Restore as: Select Amazon.

  • Destination: Select an Amazon EC2 hypervisor.

  • Access node (Optional): Choose one of the following options:

    • Automatic: Select to distribute the instances in the restore job across the access nodes (proxies) that are assigned for the Amazon EC2 destination hypervisor.

      Instances are assigned to access nodes first by performing a zone match. If access nodes are not available in the same zone, then a region match is performed. This option is available for full instance restores from streaming backups or IntelliSnap backup copies.

      By default, the automatic option is used for the restore.

    • access_node_name: To use a different access node, select the access node from the list.

      • If you select an access node running in AWS, you must enter the guest VM credentials so that AWS drivers can be injected for the restored VM.

      • If you select an access node that is outside of AWS, the restore uploads volume information to S3 and uses the volumes to create the instance.

        Note

        For certain Linux versions, Commvault supports automatically injecting the drivers if a FREL access node is used. See, Automatically Inject Xen and Nitro Drivers for Linux Guest VMs.

    For AWS to AWS conversion, if you assigned an access node at the hypervisor and VM group levels, both the access nodes are used. For AWS conversions, if you assigned an access node at the hypervisor level and the VM group level for both the source and the destination hypervisors, the access nodes assigned for the destination hypervisor are used.

  • If you are restoring multiple instances, click the All Instances tab on the bottom left to specify configuration values for all instances you are restoring, or the name of each instance to specify values individually. Specify the following values:

    • Enable edit destination instance name (for all instances): To change the names of all destination instances, select this option, select Prefix or Suffix, and then enter a string to append to the original display name to create new destination instance names.

    • Instance name (for an individual instance): Select the instance, and then enter the new display name in the box.

      Note

      If an existing instance with the same name exists on the destination host and you do not select Overwrite instances if they already exist, the restore job fails.

    • Availability zone: Click Browse, select an availability zone for the converted VM, and then click OK.

    • Auto select instance type (Optional): To select a specific instance type, clear this option, and then select an instance type that provides the available CPU cores and memory for the instance.

    • Volume type: To select a volume type for the converted VM, clear this option, and then select a volume type that is optimized for transactional workloads or streaming workloads, for the instance.

      By default, General Purpose SSD (gp2) volume type is used for the restored instance.

      The following volume types are available:

      • General Purpose SSD (gp2)

      • General Purpose SSD (gp3)

      • Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1)

      • Throughput Optimized HDD (st1)

      • Cold HDD (sc1)

      • Magnetic (standard)

    • Encryption key: To select an encryption key for the converted VM, clear this option, and then select the required encryption key.

      By default, the option is set to no encryption.

      The following encryption keys are available:

      • default (aws/ebs)

      • Custom encryption keys

    • Network: Click Browse, select an EC2 or a VPC network for the restored instances, and then click OK.

    • Auto select operating system (Optional): To select a specific operating system, clear this option, and then select the operating system for the restored instance.

    • Auto select security group (Optional): To select a specific security group, clear this option, and then select a security group for the specified network.

    • Specify guest credentials (required if you chose an AWS access node): Select this option, and then enter the guest VM credentials, including the Domain / Computer name, Username, and Password.

  • Power on instance after restore: Select this option to start the instance automatically.

  • Unconditionally overwrite if it already exists (Optional): To delete an existing instance and replace it with the restored instance, select this option.

  • Additional options (Optional): Select the transport mode for the restored instances.

    • Automatic (default): This option uses the EBS direct API restore mode by default. This is the default option.

    • Amazon EBS Direct: Utilizes Amazon EBS direct APIs to perform VM conversion. It requires AWS paravirtual, NVMe, Enhanced Networking drivers, and EC2Install utility be pre-installed prior to the Amazon EC2 instance backup.

      For the list of AWS paravirtual, NVMe, Enhanced Networking drivers, and EC2Install utility, see VM Conversion Using the EBS Direct API Restores.

    • AWS VM Import/Export: Utilizes AWS VM Import/Export service for VM conversion to AWS.

    • Commvault HotAdd: Utilizes Commvault HotAdd to perform VM conversion. It requires a Commvault Access Node in destination region. It also requires AWS paravirtual, NVMe, Enhanced Networking drivers, and the EC2Install utility be pre-installed prior to Amazon EC2 instance backup.

      Note

      For certain Linux versions, Commvault supports automatically injecting the drivers. See, Automatically Inject Xen and Nitro Drivers for Linux Guest VMs.

      If the requirements for Amazon EBS Direct and Commvault HotAdd are not met, the restore operation falls back to AWS VM Import/Export.

      For Amazon EBS Direct and Commvault HotAdd options, to restrict the scope of AMI selection to specific AMI IDs, you must add an additional setting. For more information, see Enabling Specific AMI IDs for Restores and Replication.

Result

  • After VM conversion, if a source VM had dynamic disks that use spanned or striped volumes, the volumes in the converted VM might be marked as Failed in Disk Management. You must bring these disks online manually using Disk Management. To bring the disks back online, perform an Import Foreign Disks operation on the guest VM for the disk group that contains failed disks. Import the entire disk group in one operation rather than performing a partial import.

  • After you perform VM conversion or replication operations to Amazon EC2 using the HotAdd method, a Windows instance restarts when a user logs on to the instance for the first time. The restart is required to initialize drivers that are added to the instances during the operation.

  • For conversion from Azure hypervisor, the tags at the VM level and the disk level are restored.

    Note

    • The source Azure VM must not have more than 49 tags.

    • The name tag is overwritten by AWS.

    • Tag key lengths greater than 128 are truncated after restores.

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