Is it possible to duplicate an AWS EC2 instance without any downtime?

Question

I've got an AWS EC2 instance that I would like to create a spin off of in order to do some testing. I know I can create an AMI of the running instance, then launch that. But when I create the AMI, the machine goes down for a couple minutes (at least the network connection).

Is there a setting somewhere that I am missing?

I generate the AMI by right clicking the machine in the management console and selecting "Create AMI."

Thanks

Answer 1

No. Not in a technical sense. The machine must reboot when you create an AMI. You are not losing network connection, your machine is actually restarting.

One thing you could do is copy your disk to another disk, but that is not easy to do.

Amazon EC2 powers down the instance, takes images of any volumes that were attached, creates and registers the AMI, and then reboots the instance. -http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2011-05-15/UserGuide/index.html?Tutorial_CreateImage.html

EDIT: I am looking at this answer again, and AWS now has the ability to check "no reboot" when creating an AMI. This is probably not a great idea for volumes with a lot of writes, but it is nice to have.

Answer 2

Amazon now allows a "no-reboot" option when creating an AMI, presented in a checkbox. However, the "file system integrity on the created image can't be guaranteed" so you'll have to weigh the integrity vs. downtime.

• http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2011-05-15/UserGuide/index.html?Tutorial_CreateImage.html

• http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ApiReference-cmd-CreateImage.html