VM Conversion Using EBS Direct APIs

You can convert a VMware, Azure, or Hyper-V VM to an Amazon EC2 instance using the EBS direct APIs.

For Amazon EBS volumes that were created from Amazon EBS snapshots, the storage blocks must be pulled down from Amazon S3 and written to the Amazon EBS volume before you can access them. This preliminary action takes time and can cause a significant increase in the latency of I/O operations the first time each block is accessed. Amazon EBS volume performance is achieved after all blocks have been downloaded and written to the Amazon EBS volume.

Requirements

Windows Source VMs

• Configure your host firewall (Windows firewall or similar) to allow access to Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Network discovery. Otherwise, you cannot access your Amazon EC2 instance after the conversion is complete.

• Enable RDP.

Linux Source VMs

• Linux VMs must use the old network interface naming, such as eth0, instead of ens192, enp1s0, etc. For more information, see Ethernet Naming Conventions for RHEL, CentOS, Oracle Linux, and Suse Linux.

• Enable Secure Shell (SSH) for remote access.

• The host firewall (such as Linux iptables) must permit access to SSH.

• Ensure that Linux VMs use GRUB (GRUB legacy) or GRUB 2 as the bootloader.

• Linux VMs must use one of the following for the root file system: ext2, ext3, ext4, Btrfs, JFS, or XFS.

• Linux VM /etc/fstab entries should use UUIDs instead of device names, because device names might change during replication. For information about updating fstab entries to use UUIDs, see Updating fstab Entries to Use UUIDs.

Disk Space Requirements

• Ensure that there is a minimum of 2 GB free space on the C: drive.

Configuring Source VMs for EBS Direct Write

For Windows and Linux guest VMs, you must install the required drivers to the source VMs and then perform a new conversion. For more information, see Preparing the Source VM.

When performing conversion for an Active Directory domain controller, upgrade the PV drivers as described in Upgrade a Domain Controller (AWS PV Upgrade).

EBS Direct Write Process

Supported VMware Guest Operating Systems

Windows

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Web Server, Datacenter, Enterprise) (64-bit only). For VM conversion or live sync replication of guest VMs that run Windows Server 2008 R2 versions:

  • For Windows Server 2008 R2 and earlier, see Installing Drivers for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Earlier.

  • For Windows Server 2008 R2 and later, validation might fail for the converted Amazon EC2 instance in AWS. To resolve this issue, set the RealTimeIsUniversal registry key on the source VM as described in the AWS article Configure time settings for Windows Server 2008 and later, and then perform a new backup to use as the source for the conversion or replication.

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only) (Nano Server installation not supported)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows Server 1709 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows Server 1803 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows 10 (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) (US English) (64-bit only)

Linux

• CentOS 6.x

• CentOS 7.x

• CentOS 8.x

• Oracle Linux 6.x

• Oracle Linux 7.x

• Oracle Linux 8.x

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.x

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.x

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.x

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 and above

• Ubuntu 14.04

• Ubuntu 14.10

• Ubuntu 15.04

• Ubuntu 16.04

• Ubuntu 16.10

• Ubuntu 17.04

• Ubuntu 18.04

• Ubuntu 20.04

• Ubuntu 21.10

• Ubuntu 22.x

Supported Volume and File System Types

The MBR and GPT formatted Amazon EBS volumes are supported for both OS and data Amazon EBS volumes for both Windows and Linux operating systems.

Windows

Amazon EC2 Instances with Amazon EBS volumes that use Master Boot Record (MBR) and GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning are supported.

Linux

You can convert Linux VMs that use one of the following for the root file system: ext2, ext3, ext4, Btrfs, JFS, or XFS.

Process

1. Create empty Amazon EBS snapshots in the destination zone, region, or account using the ebs:StartSnapshot API.

2. Write backup data retrieved from the Commvault storage library, and write to newly created Amazon EBS snapshot, using the ebs:PutSnapshotBlock API.

3. Complete the Amazon EBS snapshots using the ebs:CompleteSnapshot API.

4. Create Amazon EBS volumes from Amazon EBS snapshots.

   Note

   Amazon EBS volumes provisioned from Amazon EBS snapshots will required initialization to achieve production performance. See, Initialize Volumes.

5. Create an Amazon EC2 instance and attach the new Amazon EBS volumes.

6. Delete the Amazon EBS snapshots created.

Related Topics

Initialize Amazon EBS Volumes