How to migrate VM to AWS (Cold Migration)

Now a days there is a lot of demand for AWS and of course it is easy to adopt AWS services like EC2, S3, etc., but not all the time we may able to deploy new instances and install applications, there may be some scenarios where we may need to migrate complete VM from physical datacenter to AWS. So here we will discuss about how we can do cold migration of VM to AWS.

VM Import/Export enables us to import virtual machine (VM) images from our existing virtualization environment to Amazon EC2, and then deploy new instance using same AMI, this will enable us to copy our VM image catalog to Amazon EC2, or create a repository of VM images for backup and disaster recovery.

Below Software’s /applications will be used to complete this cold migration:

• VMware Workstation
• Ovftool 

Step 1: Setup a VM

Install a windows 2012 r2 server using VMWare Workstation using the windows 2012 r2 ISO. 

Step 2: Exporting the VM

We need to export this VM as OVA file or VMDK, VHD OR RAW. So, power off the VM and

Go to -> File -> Export to OVF. 

Now the VM is exported in the format of OVF.

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/vm-import/ gives us the detailed information. 

Step 3: Conversion of OVF to OVA

The OVF file should be converted to OVA file to import the VM in AWS. VMware player helps to convert OVF to OVA, 

VMware OVFtool can be downloaded ovftool-download

After installation of ovftool, run the below commands

cd "Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool"

ovftool.exe H:\Image\Windows-2012-Server.ovf H:\Image\Windows-2012-Server.ova (This command converts from .ovf to .ova)

Now the VM is successfully converted from OVF to OVA.

Step 4: Exporting OVA to S3 

For exporting this OVA to S3, we need to have a user and an IAM role in AWS. 

And also install AWS CLI for 64bit. 

After installing AWS CLI, run the commands using command prompt.

aws configure (Give the access key , secret key and region)

aws s3 ls

aws s3 cp Windows-2012-Server.ova s3://migratebucket/ (Cpoying the ova file to s3 bucket)

aws s3 ls s3://migratebucket/ (To view the uploaded ova in s3)

Step 5: Importing OVA

To import OVA as an image, there are few steps that needed to be followed.

1.       Open a notepad and type the below commands and save it as trust-policy.json

{

   "Version": "2012-10-17",

   "Statement": [

      {

         "Effect": "Allow",

         "Principal": { "Service": "vmie.amazonaws.com" },

         "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",

         "Condition": {

            "StringEquals":{

               "sts:Externalid": "vmimport"

            }

         }

      }

   ]

}

As an aws user, run the command 

aws iam create-role --role-name vmimport --assume-role-policy-document file://trust-policy.json (Need to go the path where the trust-policy.json is saved)  

     2. Type the below commands in a notepad and name it as role-policy.json

{

   "Version": "2012-10-17",

   "Statement": [

      {

         "Effect": "Allow",

         "Action": [

            "s3:ListBucket",

            "s3:GetBucketLocation"

         ],

         "Resource": [

            "arn:aws:s3:::disk-image-file-bucket"

         ]

      },

      {

         "Effect": "Allow",

         "Action": [

            "s3:GetObject"

         ],

         "Resource": [

            "arn:aws:s3:::disk-image-file-bucket/*"

         ]

      },

      {

         "Effect": "Allow",

         "Action":[

            "ec2:ModifySnapshotAttribute",

            "ec2:CopySnapshot",

            "ec2:RegisterImage",

            "ec2:Describe*"

         ],

         "Resource": "*"

      }

   ]

}

    disk-image-file-bucket -> implies the bucket name 

    Now run the command 

    aws iam put-role-policy --role-name vmimport --policy-name vmimport --policy-document file://role-policy.json

     3. Finally importing the VM- Open a notepad and type the below commands and save this fie as containers.json file. 

[

  {

    "Description": "Windows 2008 OVA",

    "Format": "ova",

    "UserBucket": {

        "S3Bucket": "my-import-bucket",

        "S3Key": "vms/my-windows-2008-vm.ova"

    }

}]

         

         S3Bucket -> It indicates the bucket name

         S3Key -> It is the path of the ova file in S3 (Make this file public and copy that location). 

         

    aws ec2 import-image --description "Windows 2012 OVA" --disk-containers file://containers.json

       (This command imports the image in reference with containers.json file).

    

          The ova is imported and it is pending state. 

    Step 6: Check the Import task

     

    To check the status of the Import,

     aws ec2 describe-import-image-tasks --import-task-ids import-ami-ffrnccwy

     (we get the AMI id from import task id from the containers.json policy)

     After multiple checks, the status of the import shows "Completed"

     

    

      Finally, the AMI is created in AWS and now that we have an AMI, we can launch it as an instance or copy it to another region. 

      

      Step 7: Verifying the VM Imported as AMI.

      Launch an instance using the AMI (Image of the VM) which is created in our AWS EC2 environment. Connect to the instance using Remote desktop connection and give the password which we have set it during the installation of the VM in VMware workstation. 

      

  

     Hence, the VM is imported successfully with the migration of the applications 😊

     

Note: This process will help us to perform VM cold migration, if somebody want to perform physical server, then process would remain same apart from converting Physical to VM, In future post will convert how to convert physical machine to VM.

Hope this post will help you.