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Elastic Compute Service:Server migration guide

Last Updated:Aug 16, 2024

Alibaba Cloud provides various methods to migrate resources to Alibaba Cloud and migrate cloud servers within Alibaba Cloud. You can select one of migration methods based on your business requirements.

Migrate servers to Alibaba Cloud

Migrate physical machines, virtual machines (VMs), and cloud servers to Alibaba Cloud

Note

Server Migration Center (SMC) is a migration platform provided by Alibaba Cloud. SMC provides migration services with universal capabilities, consistent user experience, and high efficiency. This meets your migration requirements when you use Alibaba Cloud services. For more information, see What is SMC?

Scenario

Description

References

Migrate servers to Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances

You can use SMC to migrate business from physical machines, VMs, and cloud servers of other cloud vendors to Alibaba Cloud. SMC improves the efficiency of business migration to ECS.

Migrate a server to an ECS instance

You can import an image file of a server from an on-premises machine or another cloud service provider to Alibaba Cloud to create a custom image. Then, you can use the custom image to create an ECS instance or replace the operating system (system disk) of an existing ECS instance to meet various business requirements and cater to different application scenarios.

Import custom images

Migrate VMware VMs without the need to install agents

SMC allows you to migrate VMware VMs to Alibaba Cloud without the need to install agents. This improves the efficiency of business migration to Alibaba Cloud and ensures business security and business performance during the migration.

Migrate VMware VMs without agents

Note

You can also use an agent to migrate VMware VMs. For more information, see Migrate a server to an ECS instance.

Migrate ECS instances in Alibaba Cloud

Methods for migrating ECS instances in Alibaba Cloud

Migrate ECS instances within the same account or across accounts

Scenario

Description

Procedure

Migrate an ECS instance within the same account and region

Migrate an ECS instance within the same Alibaba Cloud account and region.

Select a migration method based on your business requirements.

Use the ECS replication feature

After you copy an image of a source ECS instance to the region of the source ECS instance, you can use the image to create an ECS instance. Perform the following steps:

  1. Create a custom image from the source ECS instance. For more information, see Create custom image.

  2. Create an ECS instance from the custom image. For more information, see Create an instance by using a custom image.

    Note

    You can also use the custom image to replace the operating system (system disk) of another existing ECS instance in the destination region. For more information, see Replace the operating system (system disk) of an instance.

Use SMC

During migration, select the region of the source ECS instance as the destination region. For more information, see Migrate data between ECS instances that belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account or different Alibaba Cloud accounts.

Migrate an ECS instance within the same account and across regions

Migrate an ECS instance within the same Alibaba Cloud account and across regions.

Select a migration method based on your business requirements.

Use the ECS replication feature

After you copy an image of a source ECS instance to a destination region, you can obtain the image copy that has a different ID in the region. When you copy the source image, you can specify the configurations of the image copy, such as the tags, resource group, and encryption attributes. Then, you can use the image copy to create ECS instances. Perform the following steps:

  1. Create a custom image from the source ECS instance. For more information, see Create custom image.

  2. Copy the custom image to the destination region. For more information, see Copy a custom image.

  3. Create an ECS instance from the image copy. For more information, see Create an instance by using a custom image.

    Note

    You can also use the custom image to replace the operating system (system disk) of another existing ECS instance in the destination region. For more information, see Replace the operating system (system disk) of an instance.

Use SMC

During migration, select the destination region. For more information, see Migrate data between ECS instances that belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account or different Alibaba Cloud accounts.

Migrate an ECS instance across Alibaba Cloud accounts and in the same region

Migrate an ECS instance across Alibaba Cloud accounts and within the same region.

Select a migration method based on your business requirements.

Use the ECS replication feature and the image sharing feature

You can share an image with other Alibaba Cloud accounts. Then, the accounts can use the image to create ECS instances. Perform the following steps:

  1. Create a custom image from the source ECS instance. For more information, see Create custom image.

  2. Share the image with another Alibaba Cloud account. For more information, see Share a custom image.

  3. Create an ECS instance from the shared image. For more information, see Create an instance by using a custom image.

    Note

    You can also use the custom image to replace the operating system (system disk) of another existing ECS instance in the destination region. For more information, see Replace the operating system (system disk) of an instance.

Use SMC

When you migrate data, make sure that you can distinguish the source Alibaba Cloud account and the destination Alibaba Cloud account to prevent reverse migration. Select the region of the source ECS instance as the destination region. For more information, see Migrate data between ECS instances that belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account or different Alibaba Cloud accounts.

Migrate an ECS instance across Alibaba Cloud accounts and regions

Migrate an ECS instance across Alibaba Cloud accounts and regions.

Select a migration method based on your business requirements.

Use the ECS replication feature and the image sharing feature

After you copy an image of a source ECS instance to a destination region, you can share the image copy with other Alibaba Cloud accounts. Then, the accounts can use the image copy to create ECS instances. Perform the following steps:

  1. Create a custom image from the source ECS instance. For more information, see Create custom image.

  2. Copy the custom image to the destination region. For more information, see Copy a custom image.

  3. Share the image copy with another Alibaba Cloud account. For more information, see Share a custom image.

  4. Create an ECS instance from the shared image. For more information, see Create an instance by using a custom image.

    Note

    You can also use the custom image to replace the operating system (system disk) of another existing ECS instance in the destination region. For more information, see Replace the operating system (system disk) of an instance.

Use SMC

When you migrate data, make sure that you can distinguish the source Alibaba Cloud account and the destination Alibaba Cloud account to prevent reverse migration. Select the region to which you want to migrate data as the destination region. For more information, see Migrate data between ECS instances that belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account or different Alibaba Cloud accounts.

Migrate the operating system of an ECS instance

Scenario

Description

References

Migrate an operating system

If you require maintenance and technical support after technical support for your operating system is suspended due to reasons such as end of life, third-party support changes, and open source project evolution, you can migrate or upgrade the operating system by using SMC.

Migrate an operating system

Migrate an ECS instance across zones

Scenario

Description

References

Migrate an ECS instance across zones in the same region

SMC allows you to migrate ECS instances across zones in a region and change their instance types, including the number of vCPUs and memory size, within the same instance family to meet your business requirements.

Migrate an ECS instance across zones

Migrate data from a simple application server to an ECS instance

Scenario

Description

References

Migrate data from a simple application server to an ECS instance

If the network configurations or performance of the current simple application server cannot meet your business requirements, you can smoothly migrate data from the simple application server to an ECS instance for flexible resource configuration. The source simple application server and the destination ECS instance must belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account but can reside in different regions.

Migrate data from a simple application server to an ECS instance

Migrate an ECS instance between dedicated hosts or between a dedicated host and a shared host

Scenario

Description

References

Migrate an ECS instance between dedicated hosts

As your business grows and changes, resource allocation on your dedicated hosts may become imbalanced. To resolve this issue, you can migrate an ECS instance between dedicated hosts to balance resource allocation. This enhances resource utilization and ensures the high availability of your workloads.

Migrate an ECS instance between dedicated hosts

Migrate an ECS instance from a shared host to a dedicated host

You can migrate an ECS instance from a shared host to a specific dedicated host based on your business requirements. This allows flexible business migration and allows the ECS instance to exclusively use all physical resources of the dedicated host.

Migrate an ECS instance from a shared host to a dedicated host

Migrate an ECS instance from a dedicated host to a shared host

If your business no longer requires exclusive resources, you can migrate an ECS instance from a dedicated host to a shared host to reduce deployment costs.

Migrate an ECS instance from a dedicated host to a shared host

Migrate an ECS instance from the classic network to a VPC

Scenario

Description

References

Migrate an ECS instance from the classic network to a virtual private cloud (VPC)

Compared with an ECS instance in the classic network, an ECS instance in a VPC is more secure and provides more features such as the capability to associate elastic IP addresses (EIPs).

Migrate ECS instances from the classic network to a VPC

References

  • If you want to migrate data from a self-managed database, you can use Data Transmission Service (DTS). For more information, see Migrate a self-managed database.

  • YiTian ECS instances utilize fast path acceleration on chips to improve storage performance, network performance, and computing stability by an order of magnitude. The instances are suitable for the following use scenarios: cloud native applications, video encoding and decoding, high-performance computing, CPU-based machine learning, and gaming services. For information about how to migrate x86-based applications to a YiTian ECS instance, see Migrate x86 applications to a YiTian instance.