Amazon EC2 AMI Lifecycle (Part 5)

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 





Copy an Amazon EC2 AMI

When it's necessary to maintain a uniform configuration for Amazon EC2 instances across different Regions, you can utilize a single Amazon Machine Image (AMI) as your base template for launching all instances. However, it's important to note that AMIs are specific to each Region, if you want to launch an instance in a particular AWS Region, the AMI must reside within that Region. Consequently, to employ the same AMI across multiple Regions, you need to copy it from the original Region to each desired target Region.

The method you use to copy an AMI depends on whether you're copying across Regions within the same partition or across different partitions:

  • Cross-Region copying- Copy AMIs across Regions within the same partition, for example, across the Regions within the commercial partition.

  • Cross-partition copying- Copy AMIs from one partition to another partition, for example, from the commercial partition to the AWS GovCloud (US) partition.

  • Cross-account copying- Create a copy of an AMI that another AWS account has your AWS account.

The time taken to complete the copy operation for cross-Region and cross-account AMI copying is on a best-effort basis. If you need control over the completion time, you can specify a completion window ranging from 15 minutes to 48 hours, ensuring your AMI is copied within your required timeframe. Additional charges apply for time-based AMI copy operations.

Considerations

  • Permission to copy AMIs- You can use IAM policies to grant or deny users permission to copy AMIs. Starting October 28, 2024, you can specify resource-level permissions for the CopyImage action on the source AMI. Resource-level permissions for the target AMI are available as before.

  • Launch permissions and Amazon S3 bucket permissions- AWS does not copy launch permissions or Amazon S3 bucket permissions from the source AMI to the new AMI. After the copy operation is complete, you can apply launch permissions and Amazon S3 bucket permissions to the new AMI.

  • Tags-You can only copy user-defined AMI tags that you attached to the source AMI. System tags (prefixed with aws:) and user-defined tags that are attached by other AWS accounts will not be copied. When copying an AMI, you can attach new tags to the target AMI and its backing snapshots.

  • Quotas for time-based AMI copies- After you reach your cumulative snapshot copy throughput quota, subsequent time-based AMI copy requests fail.

Costs

Copying an AMI incurs no fees if a completion time is not indicated. However, extra charges will be applied for AMI copy processes that are based on time.

Typical storage and data transfer fees will be applied. Should you create a copy of an EBS-backed AMI, you will be billed for the storage of any new EBS snapshots.

Conclusion

The method of copying AMI is discussed. 






















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deployment (Part 3)

By Ashwin Venugopal -
Image
  To read part 1, please click  here To read part 2, please click  here Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) MMA is used across multiple Microsoft solutions and has undergone a few name changes as its features and functionality have evolved. If it is being considered to be used, then following areas should be covered during a Microsoft Sentinel deployment project: Consider the timelines and the strategy for a migration to AMA (Azure Monitor Agent) before the MMA end-of-life.  Consider the central deployment and management methodology for MMA. Determine which endpoints are in scope for deployment as these affect the log ingestion volume significantly.  Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) Organizations with MMA as the main Microsoft Sentinel agent should start planning the migration to AMA as soon as possible to avoid a rushed migration. One of the main advantages of AMA is the ability to control the log collection policy centrally and apply different policies against different...
Read more

Deployment (Part 1)

By Ashwin Venugopal -
Image
  To read part 2, please click  here To read part 3, please click  here Azure Resources Microsoft Sentinel needs following resources to be created: Subscription (if a dedicated subscription(s) will be used) Resource group(s) Log Analytics workspace(s) Automation rules/playbook Alert rules Workbooks Microsoft Sentinel offers hundreds of alert rules, workbooks, and automation playbook templates along with hunting scripts. The templates can be used to activate/deploy schedule alerts, create customized dashboards, create automation playbooks and perform threat-hunting activities. Generally, once deployed, the resources created have to be adjusted to match the existing environment, configure local credentials, etc. Methods of deployment: Manual- Administrator can manually configures the Microsoft Sentinel resources with the help of Azure portal. Any manual process has the inherent risks of human operator error, lack of compliance with potential change control procedures, and u...
Read more

Deployment (Part 2)

By Ashwin Venugopal -
Image
  To read part 1, please click  here To read part 3, please click  here Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub Content in Microsoft Sentinel includes any of the following types: Data connectors offer log ingestion from different sources into Microsoft Sentinel. Parsers give log formatting/transformation into ASIM formats, supporting usage across various Microsoft Sentinel content types and scenarios. Workbooks provide monitoring, visualization, and interactively with data in Microsoft Sentinel, highlighting meaningful insights for users.  Analytics rules give alerts that point to relevant SOC actions via incidents.  Hunting Queries are used by SOC teams to proactively hunt for threats in Microsoft Sentinel. Notebooks help SOC teams in using advanced hunting features in Jupyter and Azure Notebooks. Watchlists support the ingestion of specific data for enhanced threat detection and reduced alert fatigue.  Playbooks and Azure Logic Apps Custom Connectors provide featu...
Read more