VMware vSphere is the common enterprise virtualization solution to replace the cumbersome physical environment. Just as companies previously sought robust, scalable, and cost-effective solutions by adopting VMware vSphere, they might now be looking for an even better solution to upgrade their VMware infrastructure.

This does not show that VMware is an outdated solution. VMware remains the leading virtualization solution in the world, but companies should consider various factors when choosing a solution. Apart from the technical aspects, cost is a significant factor. Due to substantial price increases in 2023, many companies decide to migrate VMware to Proxmox and other virtualization platforms.

AWS is also one of the destinations. On AWS, virtual machines are called EC2 instances. Compared with the on-premise virtualization solutions, AWS even doesn’t require you to purchase the hardware offline, and you just need to pay relatively lower virtual hardware, traffic fee, etc., so that it could at least help companies save a lot of money in the short term. In addition, the cloud platform facilitates better disaster recovery ability.

If you want to migrate on-premise VMware VMs to AWS, you can import the VM to AWS with AWS CLI command, use the AWS Application Migration Service or choose a third-party solution.

Method 1. Import on-premise VMware to AWS

All the virtual machines are just files in datastore, but the files might not be recognized by another virtualization platform. If you know the method to convert virtual machine files, you can import the VM to destination platform.

The files of VMware VM can be exported to an OVA template and then you can import the OVA template with AWS CLI command to AWS to create an Amazon EC2 instance.

1. You can export VMware to OVA template with OVF tool from an on-premise ESXi host

2. Upload the OVA template to an S3 bucket

3. Create an IAM role named vmimport

4. Write a script for detailed job description

    "Description": "My Server OVA",
    "Format": "ova",
    "UserBucket": {
        "S3Bucket": "my-import-bucket",
        "S3Key": "vms/my-server-vm.ova"

5. Start to import the OVA template to AWS

aws ec2 import-image --description "My server VM" --disk-containers "file://C:\import\containers.json"
Then, you can check the EC2 instance in AWS.

Method 2. Migrate on-premise VMware VM to AWS with AWS Application Migration Service

To make its users easily relocate VMware workloads to AWS, Amazon also provides the solution to help users migrate the VMs, AWS Application Migration Service Replication Agent. Before choosing this method, you should know it limitations first that you need to install an agent manually on every VMware VM and some operating systems on the VMs are not supported.

The general procedures are:

1. Have an AWS user with required permissions

2. Set network as required

3. Create an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) subnet

4. Create Amazon VPC endpoints

5. Create of the custom post-launch settings to automate the removal of the VMware Tools later

6. Add the VMware VM and install AWS Application Migration Service Replication Agent on it

7. Test the migration

8. Launch a cutover instance to migrate the VMware VM to AWS

However, the detailed procedures are much more complicated than these. If you prefer an easier way to perform VM migration, you can choose a third-party solution.

Method 3. Convert on-premise VMware VM to AWS with Vinchin Backup & Recovery

To seamless migrate business workloads to new environment, companies should choose a method with simple procedures to minimize downtime.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery is a professional VM backup and migration solution for multiple mainstream virtualization platforms including VMware, Proxmox, Hyper-V, AWS, oVirt, OLVM, XenServer, XCP-ng, OpenStack, etc.

It facilitates easy VM migration by restoring the VM backup to another virtualization platform and doesn’t require complicated configurations. You just need to add both virtualization platforms into the backup system.

There is a user-friendly web console to help you convert the VM.

1. Add the AWS to Vinchin Backup & Recovery with credentials

2. Add VMware to Vinchin Backup with credentials

3. Add storage to store VM backup

4. Create VMware VM backup. You can add multiple VMs to the list here

5. Restore the VMware VM backup on AWS

Then, you can check the EC2 instance converted from VMware VM in AWS.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery has helped thousands of companies protect and migrate virtual machines and you can also try this easy solution with a 60-day full-featured free trial. If you have any questions during use it, please contact our support team anytime.

VMware to AWS migration FAQs

1. How long does it take to migrate VMware to AWS?

The duration largely depends on network conditions. The faster the bandwidth is, the faster the data will transfer to AWS.

2. How to ensure data security during the migration process?

You can backup the VMware VMs with Vinchin Backup & Recovery so that you can test the migration job without risk.

3. How should you remove the VMware Tools from VMware VM automatically?

You can choose the professional VM migration like Vinchin Backup & Recovery. After the VM is migrated to AWS, the VMware Tools will be automatically removed.

Sum Up

VMware is an excellent virtualization solution but sometimes you might need the cost-effective solution like AWS EC2 to run business workloads. You can import VMware OVA template, use AWS Application Migration Service, or choose Vinchin Backup & Recovery to migrate VMware to AWS.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery can help you migrate VM with the simplest procedures so don’t miss the free trial for VM migration.