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We currently have our own servers that have multiple KVM guests. If we ever decide to move to the Amazon EC2, would it possible to simply copy the VM image over or would I need to begin reconfiguring a new VM again on the cloud?

(It might sound silly but I'm still in the process of getting a grasp on the all the virtualisation/cloud stuff)

Thanks.

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since you can import RAW images, you just need to make sure your guests are using raw. if they aren't RAW, you can use qemu-img convert to convert the images to RAW. This conversion will remove any snapshot chain you may have created using qcow2

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I don't think this is right. EC2 images need to be running a Xen kernel. Also they use different device names, so fstab entries would need to be changed, maybe a few other things. – Jeremy May 11 at 1:42
Yeah, some hacking will have to take place, but running a Xen kernel shouldn't be necessary when PV isn't used IMO. Should be good enough to boot the VM up and replace the kernel and whatever else. – dyasny May 11 at 6:08
We have no choice about using paravirtual. HVM is only available for windows and cluster compute. – Jeremy May 12 at 3:34
Actually, if EC2 can import RAW images, it probably means the import process inserts the right drivers into the image. Haven't tried it, though, just assuming it's the same as virt-v2v, which makes sense (at least to me) – dyasny May 12 at 6:50
@Mridang Agarwalla did you ever get this to work? I've tried it this weekend and import request never completes for me, stays in Pending status forever. – Jeremy May 14 at 2:11
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According to Amazon this is not possible: http://aws.amazon.com/en/ec2/faqs/#What_virtual_machine_file_formats_can_I_import

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Hi maliq, if it does allow you to import vmdk images, can't I simply convert my KVM qcow2 image to a VMWare vmdk image using qemu-img convert — linux.die.net/man/1/qemu-img — and then import it? – Mridang Agarwalla Aug 26 '11 at 8:23
You can do whatever you want. If it is possible then it is worth a try. – mailq Aug 26 '11 at 8:25
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