Restoring Image-based Backup to Amazon EC2

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General Considerations

AWS VMimport service is used to import computer images to AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

VMimport Limitations

1. First generation (MBR) VMs are fully supported.
2. Second generation VMs (UEFI/GPT) are supported after conversion.
3. Server OS's are fully supported when restoring to EC2. Desktop OS's could be restored as AMI only. Read more.
4. Max number of volumes is 22.
5. Disk size is limited to 2TiB. (This article mentions 1TB, but the limit has been shifted since then).
6. IPv6 is not supported.
7. Restore time heavily depends on the instance type (especially what size has the temporary instance if it's used).
8. Refer to this article for other AWS-side limitations.

Prerequisites

1. Ensure that your VM is compatible with EC2. Check here for details.
2. Create the VMimport role in your AWS account.

Changes Applied to a Machine that is Being Restored as EC2/AMI

1. RDP is enabled.
2. DHCP is enabled.
3. Firewall is configured to bypass Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) on port 3389.

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