How to Move EC2 Instance to another Subnet, Availability Zone, or VPC?

It is not possible to move an existing EC2 instance to another subnet, VPC, or availability zone. Instead of trying to move the entire instance, you can migrate files to another elastic cloud compute service (EC2) instance. Once the files have completely moved to the new EC2, reassign the Elastic IP addresses from original instance to the new instance.

Is it possible to move EC2 instance to another VPC?

No. EC2 cannot be moved. Elastic cloud compute is a virtual machine hosted on a specific server. Moving these instances would require migrating VMs to another server, which isn't technically possible.

How to move files from one EC2 instance to another?

Step 1 - Create a new EC2 instance

- Open the Amazon EC2 console and navigate to Instances.
- Stop any active instance before you begin copying files. To do so, select the instance, click Actions > Instance state > Stop/Terminate. Terminating VM ensures that the files copied between the old and new volumes are consistent.
- Create new image. You can do so from Actions > Image > Create Image. Enter image name of your choice and Image description next to the corresponding fields. Note - always give your newly-created images a quick reboot before you begin deploying apps to enable VMs to finalize system settings.
- Wait for the VM status under the Status tab to change to Available.

Step 2 - Launch the newly-created instance

Select the AMI you just created. Choose Launch.

- Now choose the same instance type as the one you want to move. Choose Next > Configure instance details.
For network choose your current VPC.
For Subnet select the subnet where you want the new instance.
- Click Next > Add storage
- Accept the values that the system shows by default and then under the Next tab, choose Add Tags. Enter Name as Key and instance name for Value.
- Choose Review and Launch and then click Launch.
- Choose a key pair when prompted to Select a key pair.
- Accept the end-user license agreement by checking the agreement check box. Choose Launch Instances. Note - choose the instance id to return to the EC2 console.

Step 3 - Reassign the Elastic IP address

You can reassign the Elastic IP address only after you have disassociated the previous IP from the original instance. Now reassociate the Elastic IP with the new instance.

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