Change EC2 instance type with minimal downtime

There are many reasons where you would like to change the instance type.  Some of the scenarios are like a load to the system is high and you would like to increase size for performance and there are situations like your machine is underutilized where you would like to reduce the size to save cost. In this blog, we will see how Nimesa can help you in changing the instance type with minimal downtime.

AWS allows modifying the EC2 instance type from CLI as well as AWS console. Follow the following steps to manually change instance type.

  • In AWS console identify the EC2 instance for which instance type needs to be changed
  • Power Off the EC2 if it is Powered On
  • Select “Instance Settings” -> “Change Instance Type” from Action menu.
  • Select the required type and Apply
  • Power On the instance

Nimesa supports protection of AWS Instances backed by EBS volumes. It is advisable to take a snapshot of the EBS volumes before changing the instance type. In case if there are issues with the instance coming up, snapshots can be used to restore the instance back. Nimesa’s clone feature can be leveraged here to change the instance type verify the new instance and then discard the original instance.

Use Nimesa to backup the instance.

Select the instance and the backup and select clone option. select the instance type in clone instance properties and proceed with the clone. This will create a new instance from the snapshot with the specified instance type. Now you can verify the instance, once everything is working original instance can be discarded.

 

This downtime can be eliminated if the machines are part of ELB. Power off the instance which needs to changed disassociate the elastic IP. Clone the instance from the Snapshot using Nimesa to the new cloned instance associate the elastic IP of the original machine, add the instance to load balancing group.

About Nimesa

Nimesa is an enterprise-class Application Aware data protection & copy data management Solution for applications running on AWS. It uses native AWS capabilities like EBS snapshots capabilities to automatically protect the environment. Nimesa provides simple policy based lifecycle management of snapshots and clones of EC2 instances