Converting Amazon EC2 Windows Instances to VMware Workstation or VMware vSphere Virtual Machines

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone provides an option to import Amazon EC2 Windows instances into VMware Workstation, and then importing the Workstation virtual machines to a vSphere host.

Environment

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.x

Resolution

Prerequisites

Ensure that the source Amazon EC2 Windows instance has a temporary volume that is large enough to accommodate the image of your Amazon EC2 Windows instance. This temporary drive must be excluded from the conversion.

Procedure

1. Install vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.1 on the Amazon EC2 Windows instance that you want to convert.
2. Create a conversion task to import the source Amazon EC2 Windows instance as a Workstation 6.5 destination:
   1. Start vCenter Converter Standalone on the Amazon EC2 Windows instance.
   2. Click Convert a Machine in the application menu to start the Conversion wizard.
   3. On the Specify Source page, select Powered-on machine from the Select source type menu and click This local machine.
   4. Click Next to proceed to the Specify Destination page.
   5. On the Specify Destination page, select VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine from the drop-down menu and select VMware Workstation 6.5 from the VMware product list.
   6. Type a name for the destination virtual machine and browse to the temporary volume that will contain the destination virtual machine.
   7. Click Next to proceed to the View/Edit Options page.
   8. On the View/Edit Options page, select Data to Copy in the list of options.
   9. Deselect the check box in front of the temporary volume to exclude it from the conversion task.
   10. Click Next to proceed to the View Summary page.
   11. Check the summary of the conversion task and click Finish to submit it to the tasks list.
       
   A*.vmx and a*.vmdkfile are created during the conversion.
   
   
3. On the temporary volume of the Amazon EC2 Windows instance, locate the VMware Workstation virtual machine files that were created during the conversion (the *.vmxand the *.vmdkfile).
   
   
4. Transfer the VMware Workstation virtual machine files to a location that is accessible to your virtual infrastructure and to vCenter Converter Standalone. You have several options to transfer the files:
   • Upload the files to a local FTP server using an FTP client that runs inside the Amazon EC2 Windows instance.
   • Upload the files from the Amazon EC2 Windows instance to an Amazon S3 server and download them from the Amazon S3 server to a location that is accessible to your virtual infrastructure and to vCenter Converter Standalone.
   • Upload the files from the Amazon EC2 Windows instance to an Amazon S3 server and use Amazon AWS Import/Export to retrieve the data on a physical storage device. Read more about this procedure on the Amazon Web Services site.
     
     
5. Start vCenter Converter Standalone and create a conversion task to import the Workstation image into the vSphere:
   1. On the Specify Source page, select VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine from the Select source type drop-down menu.
   2. Click Browse to locate the *.vmx file you downloaded from the Amazon S3 server and click OK to return to the Specify Source page .
   3. Click Next to proceed to the Specify Destination page.
   4. On the Specify Destination page, select VMware Infrastructure virtual machine from the drop-down menu and enter the required information.
      
      Note: To convert virtual machines to vCenter Server destinations, you must have certain permissions set at the datacenter level. For more information, see the vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.1 User's Guide.
      
      
   5. Click Next to proceed to the Hosts and Clusters page.
   6. On the Host and Cluster page, specify the resources for the converted virtual machine and click Next to proceed to the View/Edit Options page.
   7. On the Options page, select Advanced in the list of options.
   8. In the Advanced conversion options pane, select Configure guest preferences for the virtual machine and click Next.
   9. On the Customizations page, select Windows License and enter the Microsoft Volume License information for the Windows operating system that will run in the destination virtual machine. Optionally, select Computer Information to change the owner name and organization details.
   10. Click Next to proceed to the View Summary page.
   11. Check the summary of the conversion task and click Finish to submit it to the tasks list.
   
   You can start using the imported Amazon EC2 Windows instance after the conversion task is completed.

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see:

• 日本語: Amazon EC2 Windows インスタンスを VMware Workstation または VMware vSphere 仮想マシンに変換する (2077056)
  
• 简体中文: 将 Amazon EC2 Windows 实例转换为 VMware Workstation 或 VMware vSphere 虚拟机 (2078040)