AWS DataSync agent requirements - AWS DataSync
Supported hypervisorsVirtual machine requirementsAmazon EC2 instance requirements

AWS DataSync agent requirements

An agent is a virtual machine (VM) or Amazon EC2 instance that AWS DataSync uses to read from or write to a storage system. Agents are commonly used when copying data from on-premises storage to AWS. You can download an agent from the DataSync console.

Use the following information to understand what you need to deploy an agent in your environment.

Supported hypervisors

You can run your DataSync agent on the following hypervisors:

  • VMware ESXi Hypervisor (version 6.5, 6.7, or 7.0): A free version of VMware is available on the VMware website. You also need a VMware vSphere client to connect to the host.

    Note

    When VMware ends general support for an ESXi hypervisor version, DataSync also ends support for that version. For information about VMware's supported hypervisor versions, see VMware lifecycle policy on the VMware website.

  • Microsoft Hyper-V Hypervisor (version 2012 R2, 2016, or 2019): A free, standalone version of Hyper-V is available at the Microsoft Download Center. For this setup, you need a Microsoft Hyper-V Manager on a Microsoft Windows client computer to connect to the host.

    Note

    The DataSync agent virtual machine (VM) is a generation 1 virtual machine. For more information about the differences between generation 1 and generation 2 VMs, see Should I create a generation 1 or 2 virtual machine in Hyper-V?

  • Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM): A free, open-source virtualization technology. KVM is included in Linux versions 2.6.20 and newer. AWS DataSync is tested and supported for the CentOS/RHEL 7.8, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS distributions. Any other modern Linux distribution might work, but function or performance is not guaranteed. We recommend this option if you already have a KVM environment up and running and you're already familiar with how KVM works.

    Note

    Running KVM on Amazon EC2 isn't supported, and cannot be used for DataSync agents. To run the agent on Amazon EC2, deploy an agent Amazon Machine Image (AMI). For more information about deploying an agent AMI on Amazon EC2, see Deploy your agent as an Amazon EC2 instance.

  • Amazon EC2 instance: DataSync provides an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that contains the DataSync VM image. For the recommended instance types, see Amazon EC2 instance requirements.

Virtual machine requirements

When deploying a DataSync agent, the VM requires the following resources:

  • Virtual processors: Four virtual processors assigned to the VM.

  • Disk space: 80 GB of disk space for installation of VM image and system data.

  • RAM: Depending on your transfer scenario, choose one of the following:

    • 32 GB of RAM assigned to the VM for tasks that transfer up to 20 million files.

    • 64 GB of RAM assigned to the VM for tasks that transfer more than 20 million files.

Amazon EC2 instance requirements

When deploying a DataSync agent with Amazon EC2, the instance size must be at least 2xlarge.

We recommend using one of the following instance sizes:

  • m5.2xlarge: For tasks to transfer up to 20 million files.

  • m5.4xlarge: For tasks to transfer more than 20 million files.

Note

An exception to this recommendation is if you're running DataSync on an AWS Snowcone device. Use the default instance snc1.medium, which provides 2 CPU cores and 4 GiB of memory.

To connect to an Amazon EC2 agent using SSH, you must use the following cryptographic algorithms:

  • SSH cipher: aes128-ctr

  • Key exchange: diffie-hellman-group14-sha1