AWS Cloud Migration: A Simple Guide to VM Import and Export

Cloud migration is no longer a trend, it’s a necessity. As businesses strive to reduce costs, increase agility, and improve performance, moving workloads to the cloud becomes a natural step. One of the most common migration needs is lifting and shifting virtual machines from on-premise environments (like VMware or Hyper-V) into Amazon Web Services (AWS).

That’s where VM Import/Export comes into the picture, a major feature that helps migrate existing VMs into Amazon EC2 instances.

In this article, let’s see :

• What is Migration ? Why Migrate to Cloud, 
• Migration Strategies: The 6 R's
• What Is VM Import Export?
• Common Uses for VM Import Export
• How VM Import Export Works

What is Migration? 

The process of transferring or moving data, applications, workloads, from On-Premise to Cloud e.g.;(AWS, Azure, GCP, etc) called migration.

Why Migrate to cloud?

There are many reasons why from startups to global enterprises are migrating to the cloud and few of them are :

Scalability On Demand - In the cloud, you can scale your resources up or down instantly based on your workload. No need to buy new servers or overprovision. You only pay for what you use.

Cost Savings - Running and maintaining physical infrastructure is expensive. Cloud platforms reduce costs by offering a pay-as-you-go model to save cost on Hardware, Power and cooling, Physical space, Maintenance. 

Security and Compliance - Cloud providers invest heavily in top-notch security features, encryption, and compliance certifications (like ISO, HIPAA, GDPR). Most businesses find that cloud security exceeds what they can manage on-prem.

Global Accessibility - The cloud allows access data and applications from anywhere in the world and perfect for remote work, international teams, or customer-facing platforms.

Faster Innovation - Cloud platforms offer ready-to-use services like: Machine learning, Analytics, DevOps tools, Databases and storage and this helps businesses innovate faster without reinventing the wheel.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity - If local data center goes down due to fire, flood, or cyberattack, cloud backups ensure that the systems can quickly bounce back. No more “single point of failure.”

Focus on What Matters - With cloud, stop worrying about hardware upgrades, patches, and power failures only focus more on strategy, innovation, and user experience.

Migration Strategies: The 6 R's

When organizations decided to move to the cloud, not every application or system is treated the same way. That's where the 6 R’s of cloud migration comes in, they are six proven strategies to help businesses choose the best approach for each workload.

1. Rehosting : Lift and Shift- refers to moving your application without making any changes to them. Whatever application running on your on-prem environment, just move an exact copy of your applications to the cloud, and you can always start optimizing your applications once it is migrated to the cloud.

One example is using AWS VM Import and Export feature, which helps to migrate the applications running on your Virtual Machine from your on-premises environment to AWS cloud.

2. Re-platform : Lift, Tinker and Shift - here no need to change the core architecture of your application however make few optimizations (like upgrading the OS or using managed services) but don’t change the core app architecture

For example: You reduce the amount of time you spend managing a database instance by migrating to the database as a service platform like Amazon RDS or you may choose to migrate your application to a fully managed platform like AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

3. Re-purchase : Drop and Shop - if you decided to move to a newer version or a different solution and you are planning to move from current licensing model to software as a service model then it would be categorize into Re-Purchase strategy. In nutshell, replace your existing software with a cloud-native version, often SaaS.

For example - Switching from on-prem Microsoft Exchange to Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace or want to move from a customer relationship management a CRM tool to salesforce or want to move from an HR system like HRMS to Workday system.

4. Re-factor OR Re-architect : Redesigned Cloud Native - This strategy tends to be the most expensive and also need a lot of planning but it can also be the most beneficial. Here you start looking at a cloud native features that are beneficial to your application and you start to redesign or re-architect the entire application. In nutshell, completely redesign your application to take full advantage of cloud features like microservices, auto-scaling, or serverless.

For example - Rebuilding a monolithic app as microservices on AWS Lambda and API Gateway.

5. Retain : Revisit - Do nothing for now, but you may want to revisit this at a later point of time. You may have some applications that you want to keep them on-promises for now due to some dependency like; you recently upgraded your applications to a newer version and you don't want to migrate them immediately or may have some application that are critical for the business and require major refactoring before they can be migrated to the cloud. In either case you can revisit these application that fall into this category at a later point of time.

For example - Keeping your mainframe system, license-based software or dependent mission critical server on-prem for a few more years.

6. Retire : Decommission applications or get rid of these application. Once you have completed discovery for your environment speak to the concern application owners and if they really need these application to be running or not ? if the applications are no longer required, decommission such application. This also helps to reduce the number of applications you want to migrate to the cloud and with the cost saving.

For example - Disabling an internal tool that is no longer used since its function is replaced by another app.

When to use "The Right Strategy"

What is VM Import/Export?

VM Import Export enables you to import virtual machine images (OVA, VMDK, VHD, or RAW formats) from your existing Virtualization Environment to Amazon EC2 as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). And also to export your Amazon EC2 instance AMI back to your On-premises environment.

You can import Windows as well as Linux virtual machine hosted in VMware ESXi, VMware workstation, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix Xen virtualization formats.

VM import will convert your Virtual Machine into Amazon EC2 AMI which you can use to run your Amazon EC2 instances in case if you want to launch EC2 Instances in a different region you can always copy the EMI that you have created from your virtual machine images to that particular region and you can launch your EC2 Instance in a different region. 

For large VM infrastructure, AWS recommend to use Server Migration Services (SMS) because AWS Server Migration Service automates the import process by reducing the workload of migrating the larger VM infrastructure. It also has a feature of replication that you can set up between your On-Prem Environment and AWS Cloud

Whether you are planning to permanently migrate or need a hybrid setup, this tool offers flexibility and control over your workloads.

Common use cases, or the benefits of using VM Import and Export

• Migrate your existing Applications and Workloads to AWS EC2
• Import your VM Image Catalog to AWS EC2
• Create a Disaster Recovery Repository for your VM images. (You can import your local VM images into Amazon EC2 for backup and disaster recovery purposes If on-premises environment suffers any kind of failure, you can quickly launch your EC2 instances on AWS from that AMI's you created during VM Import and export and at the same time you can also start exporting the AMI to rebuild your On-Premises infrastructure)

From the pricing point of view, You you are not going to be charged for using VM Import and export services, however your will only charged for the standard usage of Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3.

Prerequisites : Before you proceed, make sure you have the following.

1. AWS CLI installed and configured - How to install and configure AWS CLI
2. A VM image in OVA VMDK, VHD, or RAW format
3. An S3 bucket to upload the disk image - How to create S3 Bucket
4. IAM permissions for "vmimport" role
5. A proper container file (JSON) describing the import task

Setup:

1. Create a Dedicated Migration IAM User

While you can use an existing IAM user, it's generally a better practice to create a dedicated IAM user specifically for migration tasks. This helps keep access permissions organized and allows you to revoke or update them easily once the migration is complete.

2. Install AWS CLI

Download and install the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) on the system you'll use to manage the migration. AWS CLI will be your primary tool for interacting with the import/export service.

3. Set Up an S3 Bucket

Create an Amazon S3 bucket that will temporarily store your exported VM files. Even though you might already have buckets in your account, having a separate one for VM import/export keeps things tidy and easier to manage.

4. Assign Proper Permissions

Give the migration IAM user access to both the S3 bucket and the necessary EC2 permissions. These should include:

s3:PutObject, s3:GetObject, and s3:ListBucket for S3

ec2:ImportImage, ec2:Describe*, and ec2:RegisterImage for EC2 services

This ensures the user can manage the VM image lifecycle from upload to launch.

5. Export the VM

From your current virtualization platform (like VMware or Hyper-V), export the VM into an AWS-supported format such as OVA, VMDK, or VHD. This is the source image that you'll later import to AWS.

6. Upload the VM Image to S3

Once your VM export is ready, upload it to the S3 bucket you created. You can use the AWS CLI or the S3 management console, but the CLI is recommended for larger files and better control.

7. Prepare a JSON Configuration File

Create a JSON configuration file that describes your image. This file includes parameters such as the format of your disk image, S3 location, OS type, and more. This file will be passed to the import service to initiate the process.

8. Start the Import Process

Using the AWS CLI, call the import-image command and reference your JSON file. This tells AWS to begin converting your uploaded VM image into an AMI (Amazon Machine Image).

9. Monitor the Import Progress

The import process can take a while depending on the size of the image. You can use CLI commands like describe import image tasks to track the status and make sure everything is moving along smoothly.

10. Launch Your New AMI

Once the import is successfully completed, you'll have a new AMI in your EC2 console. You can now launch an EC2 instance using this AMI, just like you would with any other Amazon-provided image.

11. Reconfigure as Needed

After launch, you may need to configure within the VM, such as network configuration, hostname, or installing EC2-specific drivers to make it fully compatible with the AWS environment.

Step by Step process to Import a VM into AWS
(Use AWS CLI or CloudShell to run these commands)

Step 1: Create an S3 Bucket - You will need an S3 bucket to store your VM image.

aws s3 mb s3://your-vm-import-bucket

Step 2: Upload Your VM Image to S3

aws s3 cp my-vm.vmdk s3://your-vm-import-bucket/

Step 3: Create the IAM Role for VM Import - use following JSON to create the "vmimport" role with correct permissions.

json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Principal": { "Service": "vmie.amazonaws.com" },
    "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
    "Condition": {
      "StringEquals": { "sts:ExternalId": "vmimport" }
    }
  }]
}

Then attach the necessary policy with permissions for EC2 and S3 access.

Step 4: Create a Container File - this JSON file describes your VM.

json

{
  "Description": "My On-Prem VM",
  "Format": "vmdk",
  "UserBucket": {
    "S3Bucket": "your-vm-import-bucket",
    "S3Key": "my-vm.vmdk"
  }
}

Save it as containers.json

Step 5: Start the Import Task- Run following command in one line to start the VM import

aws ec2 import-image --description "My VM" --disk-containers file://containers.json

You will receive a task ID, which you can track using following command.

aws ec2 describe-import-image-tasks --import-task-ids import-ami-abc123

Once complete, you will get an AMI ID, which you can use to launch EC2 instances.

How about Exporting VMs ?

We can export  our Amazon EC2 instance (created from an imported VM) back to our on-premise environment. This would be great for backup, rollback, or hybrid cloud needs.

Quick Example is :

aws ec2 create-instance-export-task \
    --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 \
    --target-environment vmware \
    --export-to-s3-task DiskImageFormat=vmdk,ContainerFormat=ova,S3Bucket=my-export-bucket,S3Prefix=exports/

Things to Note : 

VM Import is region-specific so make sure you are using the correct region.

Ensure your VMs meet the supported OS and format criteria (e.g., Windows Server 2012 r2, Ubuntu, etc.) 

It would be great if Imported VMs is generalized (Sysprep for Windows) to avoid conflicts.

If you want dive deeper, checkout AWS official documentation : VM Import & Export 

Conclusion :

VM Import/Export is an essential tool in the AWS cloud migration process, especially if you are looking to move existing workloads without rebuilding them from scratch. It is not only cost-effective, but also keeps your cloud strategy agile and reversible. Whether you are an enterprise migrating a large-scale data center or a small team testing cloud waters, mastering this feature gives lot of control.

Checkout more AWS Blogs : vlookuphub