Question

How to migrate AWS Ec2 VMs into Digital OCean

Posted on December 12, 2023
DigitalOcean Droplets
Asked by Shailesh B Nair

Hi !

I would like to know is there a easy way to migrate AWS EC2 VM into Digital Ocean Droplets instead of installing every software into Digital Ocean especially if its a Ubuntu OS ?, Please let me know.

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• December 13, 2023

Hi there,

I’ve not tested this myself, but as far as I can see AWS allows you to export your VM to a VMDK format:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vm-import/latest/userguide/vmexport.html

DigitalOcean also supports importing custom images and VMDK file formats are supported. You can find a full list of the requirements here:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/images/custom-images/how-to/upload/

In theory as this is an Ubuntu instance and the exported image is in VMDK format it should work. But it is possible that there are some custom AWS dependencies included in that image that might cause issues.

Alternatively, as you mentioned, a good option is to spin up a new Droplet and install the necessary services. After that using rsync you can transfer over your existing files from the EC2 instance to your Droplet: