Migrate to Nitro-based Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Step 1: Identify your Xen-based Dedicated HostsStep 2: Migrate Xen-based instances to Nitro-based instance typesStep 3: Allocate a Nitro-based Dedicated HostStep 4: Move migrated instances to new Nitro-based Dedicated HostStep 5: Release unused Xen-based Dedicated Host

Migrate to Nitro-based Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts

The Nitro System is a collection of hardware and software components built by AWS that enable high performance, high availability, and high security. Nitro-based Dedicated Hosts offer improved price performance compared to Xen-based Dedicated Hosts. If you have any Xen-based Dedicated Hosts in your account, we recommend that you migrate your workloads to Nitro-based Dedicated Hosts. For more information, see AWS Nitro System.

To migrate from a Xen-based Dedicated Host to a Nitro-based Dedicated Host, you need to migrate the Xen-based instances on your Dedicated Host to Nitro-based instance types, allocate a new Nitro-based Dedicated Host, and then move your migrated Nitro-based instances to your new Nitro-based Dedicated Host.

This topic provides detailed steps for migrating from Xen-based Dedicated Hosts to Nitro-based Dedicated Hosts.

Step 1: Identify your Xen-based Dedicated Hosts

The following Dedicated Hosts are Xen-based and are eligible to be migrated to Nitro-based Dedicated Hosts.

  • General purpose: M3 | M4

  • Compute optimized: C3 | C4

  • Memory optimized: R3 | R4 | X1 | X1e

  • Storage optimized: D2 | H1 | I2 | I3

  • Accelerated computing: F1 | G3 | P2 | P3

To check if you have Xen-based Dedicated Hosts in your account

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation panel, choose Dedicated Hosts.

  3. In the Search field, use the Instance family filter to search for the Xen-based Dedicated Hosts above. For example, Instance family = m3.

Step 2: Migrate Xen-based instances to Nitro-based instance types

Instances that run on Xen-based Dedicated Hosts are also Xen-based. You must migrate these instances to Nitro-based instance types before you can move them to Nitro-based Dedicated Hosts.

Important

Before you begin migrating your instances, we recommend that you back up your data. For more information, see Create multi-volume Amazon EBS snapshots from an Amazon EC2 instance.

To find instances running on your Xen-based Dedicated Hosts

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation panel, choose Dedicated Hosts.

  3. Select the Xen-based host you intend to migrate and then select the Running instances tab. The tab lists all of the instances running of the selected host.

To migrate Linux instances, see Amazon EC2 instance type changes.

To migrate Windows instances, see Migrate an EC2 Windows instance to a Nitro-based instance type.

Note

Ensure that you migrate your instances to an instance type that matches the Nitro-based Dedicated Host that you intend to migrate to. For example, if you intend to migrate to a M7i Dedicated Host, ensure that you migrate your instances to an M7i instance type.

Step 3: Allocate a Nitro-based Dedicated Host

To find supported Nitro-based Dedicated Hosts

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation panel, select Instance Types.

  3. Apply the following filters:

    • Hypervisor = nitro

    • Dedicated Host support = true

After you've found a suitable Nitro-based instance type, allocate a new Dedicated Host.

Step 4: Move migrated instances to new Nitro-based Dedicated Host

After you have allocated the Nitro-based Dedicated Host and it reaches the available state, you can move the instances that you previously migrated to Nitro-based instance types to the new Dedicated Host.

To move your instances to your new Nitro-based Dedicated Host

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation panel, Instances.

  3. Select the instance that you migrated and choose Actions, Instance settings, Modify instance placement.

  4. For Target dedicated host, select the new Nitro-based Dedicated Host, and then choose Save.

  5. Restart the instance. Select the instance and choose Instance state, Start instance.

Step 5: Release unused Xen-based Dedicated Host

After you have migrated your workloads from the Xen-based Dedicated Host to the new Nitro-based Dedicated Host, you can release the Xen-based Dedicated Host if you no longer need it.