How can I move EC2 instances to a different subnet?

Question

I have a VPC set up in AWS. we have created 2 subnets (A/24 and B/24), straight using all the IP having no IP's/Subnets for further usage.

We find that the b/24 is not totally utilized and we are wasting the Ip address in that.

Now we want to reduce the subnet size and move the instances from B/24 to A/24. and create 4 smaller subnets from B/24 and of /28 range and move back the servers to one of the smaller subnets created.

Please advise what are the suggested best practices we can apply in a way that we should be able to keep our available servers in B/24 and create multiple subnets as well.

Answer 1

Creating smaller subnets is pretty straight forward. Delete the subnet and create new subnets. However, you'll want to transition off the boxes in B/24 before you delete it.

Now, moving a running machine between subnets is not possible*. Depending on your application and your requirements, I imagine that shutting it down, taking an image of the machine, then launching a new instance of that machine in the other subnet will work.

*As an aside, I wondered if you could attach a new network interface from a new subnet and then remove your old network interface, effectively moving subnets without having the take the box down. As it turns out, you cannot remove the network interface at index 0, which means this does not work.