Adding instances from the EC2 Console
You can now add EC2 instances as source servers in DRS, starting from the EC2 console. New or existing instances can be added by selecting the appropriate action on the EC2 console, sending you to the AWS focused page allowing to install the AWS replication agent used by DRS on the selected instances.
Add instances
You can protect your EC2 instances using AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) in the chosen AWS Region, by adding to them to AWS DRS as source servers. Utilize AWS Systems Manager (SSM) if present on your instance to install the AWS replication agent, a step needed to start replicating data from your instance to AWS. Only instances managed by AWS Systems Manager would be able to have the AWS replication agent installed on them.
Note
You will need an instance profile with the policies listed below in order to have your instances managed by SSM and for installing the AWS replication agent:
Successfully installing the AWS replication agent adds the instance to AWS DRS (as a source server) in the chosen target region.
Supported EC2 instances
Note
Any additional EBS volumes added during the EC2 Instance creation that are offline, unmounted, or unformatted will not be replicated. Any volume that is later placed online or mounted with a valid file system will automatically be replicated if Automatically replicate new disks is enabled.
This section lists all the instances that were selected to be protected by AWS DRS. The list shows which instances are currently managed by SSM and which instances are currently not managed. Only instances managed by SSM can have the AWS replication agent installed on them using this page. You can also install the agent using the installer as defined in Installing the AWS Replication Agent, without requiring the SSM agent to be present and active on the server to be protected.
To have an instance managed by SSM, requires the SSM agent to be installed on a compatible operating system (or preinstalled in the AMI), and the instance to have the correct permissions (as defined in the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore and the AWSElasticDisasterRecoveryEC2InstancePolicy policies). To update the instance profiles, the Instance profile role installation section allows to create the default instance profile (with the two policies mentioned above) if needed. The Instance profiles section allows to assign instance profiles to instances, and will automatically assign the default instance profile to all instances that do not have any instance profile attached to them. Use the Attach profiles to all instances button to attach the assigned instance profiles to the instances in case the default profile was created and automatically assigned to them or if you changed the assigned instance profile.
Target disaster recovery region
On this section, you can define the target disaster recovery region. This can be the same region where the instances are present in, or it can be a different region, for cross-region protection. AWS DRS must be initialized in the target region in order to protect the instances onto that region. The indicator next to the region’s name will show if AWS DRS is already initialized in the target region, or not. If the region is not initialized, a button labelled Initialize and configure AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery will be visible and active. Clicking this button opens the AWS DRS initialization wizard for AWS DRS in the target region on another browser tab.
Instance profile role installation - optional
This section provides you with the option to create the default IAM role with the required permissions as an instance profile. The role AWSElasticDisasterRecoveryAutomatedAgentInstallRole includes the permissions defined in the policies AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore and AWSElasticDisasterRecoveryEC2InstancePolicy. These permissions are required to allow the SSM agent to operate and to install the AWS replication agent, respectively. Clicking the Install default IAM role installs this role. This needs to be done only once per account. If the role was already installed in the account, this button is inactive. The default instance profile role will be automatically assigned to instances without an instance profile in the Instance profiles section. If you click the Attach profiles to all instances button, this role will be attached to all instances it was assigned to in the Instance profiles section. If this default IAM role is not installed, you will need to make sure you have an instance profile with the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore and AWSElasticDisasterRecoveryEC2InstancePolicy policies (or the combined set of permissions within both of these policies).
Instance profiles
This section lists all the instances that were selected to be protected by adding them as source servers to AWS DRS and their current instance profiles. Instances without any instance profile will have the AWSElasticDisasterRecoveryAutomatedAgentInstallRole instance profile and IAM role assigned to them if it exists on this account. Using the default profile is not mandatory, as any instance profile in the account can be assigned to any instance, but care must be taken to verify each instance has an instance profile with the permissions defined in the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore and AWSElasticDisasterRecoveryEC2InstancePolicy policies.
Note
AWS DRS does not validate the instance profile has the required permissions to support working with the SSM agent or installing the AWS replication agent for DRS.
Note
Attaching an instance profile with the needed permissions is a mandatory step if you want to install AWS DRS on instances that have the SSM agent installed on them (manually, or preinstalled on AMI) but are not managed on SSM due to missing an instance profile with the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore policy.
Click the button labelled Attach profiles to all instances to attach the assigned instance profiles to their instances.
After attaching such a profile, allow AWS DRS a few minutes to identify the instance as managed by SSM. If SSM is present on the instance, and an instance profile with the needed permissions was attached to the instance, then within a few minutes, the marker near the instance ID will change to show that the instance is currently managed by SSM.
Attach profiles to all instances
Clicking this button attaches the instance profiles assigned in the Instance profiles section to their instances. After attaching appropriate instance profiles to instances, allow a few minutes for DRS to detect if these instances are managed by SSM.
Add instances
Click this button to install the AWS replication agent on all instances that are currently managed by SSM. If there are such instances, AWS DRS will list all these instances and the progress of installing the AWS replication agent on them. Successfully installing the AWS replication agent on these instances adds them as source servers to AWS DRS. If there are no instances that are currently managed by SSM, try installing the SSM agent on these instances, then attach an appropriate instance profile to them.
Add instances result page
On this page you can view the result of adding instances to AWS DRS by installing the AWS replication agent on them. The page shows the progress of this process if currently running, or the summary of the last run. In addition, for each instance that is currently managed by SSM, there is a table listing the following:
Instance ID - The ID of the instance. This also links to the instance on the EC2 console page (opens in a different browser tab).
Status - The current status of the installation, possible values include Success, In Progress, Pending and Error.
Details - holds a link to the source servers page on the target region for successful installations, or a link to the run log on the SSM console (opens in a new browser tab) for runs that have failed, are pending or are in progress.
