8.7.2 Importing an Amazon virtual machine on a VMware Cloud Server

To import an Amazon EC2 virtual machine on a VMware Cloud Server follow the steps below:

1. Create the Amazon EC2 virtual machine image you want to export
2. Export the image from the Amazon EC2 virtual machine and Upload the image to the FTP area provided by Aruba Cloud Computing
3. Create a Cloud Server with a VMware hypervisor with a custom template

There are two possibilities, depending on whether the Operating System is Windows or Linux.

Windows

To do this on a Windows machine you have to perform the following steps:

1. Create the Amazon EC2 virtual machine image you want to export
   the application VMware vCenter Converter Standalone provides an option to create and export the image:

   • install VMware vCenter Converter Standalone on the Amazon EC2 virtual machine that you want to export by selecting in "Setup Type" the option "Local Installation"
     
     
   • launch VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
   • click on "Convert to Machine" in the application menu to launch the conversion procedure
     
     
   • select "Powered-on-machine" from the menu "Select source type" and click "This local machine"
     
     
   • click on "Next" to go to the page "Destination System"
   • in the page "Specify Destination" select the heading "VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine"  from the drop-down menu and choose "VMware Workstation 6.5.x" from the list of VMware products
     
     
   • type the name of the destination virtual machine and select the volume that it will contain
   • click on "Next" to proceed to the page "Options"
   • in the page "Options" select "Data to Copy" from the options
     
     
   • clear the check box of the volume that will contain the image to exclude it from the conversion
     
     
   • click on "Next"  to go to the "Summary" page
     
     
   • click "Finish"
   • wait until the conversion is completed
     
     
   • during the conversion a .vmx file and a .vmdk file will be created.
2. Exporting and Uploading the image to the FTP area provided by Aruba Cloud Computing
   • In order to be able to manage the images of virtual disks Aruba Cloud Computing offers a free FTP area for each account and for each data center. This FTP area is only used to archive images of virtual disks to be imported, i.e. images of exported virtual disks: the only accepted file formats for the virtual disk images are .vmdk and .vhd files.
     From the control panel go to the page for the tab "Manage" and select "Tools" > "Import virtual disks" from the menu on the left which will take you to a page where the connection data for your FTP Account are highlighted, and where the files uploaded in this area are listed (.vmdk and .vhd file types).
     
     
     
     By downloading any FTP client (such as FileZilla, CoreFTP, Cyberduck, etc.) and using the data available to you, you will have access to the area where you can upload images of virtual disks to be imported, or download the exported virtual disks.
     All the files uploaded to the FTP area are controlled by our Cloud system and all the uploaded images will appear as a list.
3. Creating a Cloud Server with a VMware hypervisor with a custom template
   • To create a Cloud Server with a VMware hypervisor with a custom Templates please refer to the specific section that deals with it in this guide.

Linux

In the case of exporting a disk image from a Linux machine, there is not a generic tool that guarantees the export in a quick and simple way regardless of the Linux distribution; it is advisable to proceed as follows:

• boot from external disk (CD/DVD)
• export an image from the machine or from a command line (e.g.:dd command) or from tools (e.g.: Clonezilla, Partimage)
• upload the image to the FTP area provided by Aruba
• create a Cloud Server with a custom Template
• upload the image to the main disk
• access the Cloud Server using the Recovery Console to restore the filesystem and reconfigure the machine (operation almost certainly required)