VM Import/Export Now Supports Windows 2012

The VM Import/Export feature gives you the power to import existing virtual machine images to Amazon EC2 instances and to export them back to your on-premises environment. You can move images to hasten and simplify your migration from on-premises to the AWS cloud or as part of a disaster recovery model.

Import & Export Windows Server 2012 Images
I am happy to announce that you can now import and export Windows Server 2012 images to EC2. This is generally done with the EC2 API tools; however, you can use the Amazon EC2 VM Import Connector for VMware vCenter if you use VMware.

AWS will provide the appropriate Microsoft Windows Server license key for the imported image. Your on-premises key will not be used in the cloud and you are free to use it for other Windows Server images that are still running in your on-premises environment.

The EC2 documentation contains complete information on the steps that you need to take to perform an import or export operation.

Windows Import Enhancements
In addition to adding support for Windows Server 2012, VM Import has also made a few improvements to the import process for customers importing Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2008 images.  Amazon EC2 instances created from Windows VMs will now benefit from having EC2Config installed by default and from having the latest-generation Citrix PV drivers.

Start Today
Support for Windows Server 2012 is available now and you can start using it today.

You can also import Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu, and Debian images; see the VM Import Prerequisites and Before You Get Started section of the documentation for additional information.

— Jeff;