Operating systems such as CentOS 7/8 and Windows Server 2008/2012 have reached end of life (EOL) and no longer receive security updates. If your ECS instance runs an EOL operating system, you can use SMC to migrate it to a supported OS for continued maintenance and security.
For more information about the maintenance cycle of operating systems, see OS lifecycle overview.
Scenarios
-
Your OS has reached EOL and requires continued support.
Discontinued CentOS and Windows Server versions require migration or upgrade for ongoing maintenance and technical support.
-
Your current OS does not meet business requirements.
Migrate to improve system reliability and performance, or resolve incompatibility with specific software, hardware, or other devices.
Benefits
-
Ease of use
Perform migrations from the SMC console. Track progress and view logs.
-
Strong reliability
Snapshots are created automatically without manual intervention.
-
High security
The original system disk is released and replaced by a new system disk that contains all original data, preventing data loss.
Migration process
The following figure shows how to migrate CentOS 7 on an ECS instance to Alibaba Cloud Linux 3.
Supported migration paths
Only migration schemes described in the following tables are supported.
Linux
| Operating system architecture | Source operating system | Destination operating system |
| x86 | CentOS 7 |
|
| CentOS 8 |
| |
| ARM64 | CentOS 7 |
|
| CentOS 8 |
|
- The operating system to be migrated must be the operating system of an ECS instance within the current Alibaba Cloud account.
- Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 and 3 do not support GUIs. You can migrate your CentOS operating system with a GUI to Anolis OS.
Windows
The following table lists supported x86-based Windows migration paths.
Migrate Windows Server 2008 R2
|
Operating system architecture |
Source operating system |
Destination operating system |
|
x86 |
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
|
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
Migrate Windows Server 2012 R2
|
Operating system architecture |
Source operating system |
Destination operating system |
|
x86 |
Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
|
|
Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
Migrate Windows Server 2016
|
Operating system architecture |
Source operating system |
Destination operating system |
|
x86 |
Windows Server 2016 Standard 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
|
|
Windows Server 2016 Datacenter 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
Migrate Windows Server 2019
|
Operating system architecture |
Source operating system |
Destination operating system |
|
x86 |
Windows Server 2019 Datacenter 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
Windows Server 2022 Datacenter 64-bit (Chinese/English) |
Migration procedure
Applications installed on the original system kernel may not work after migration. Test all business applications on the destination OS before you migrate.
For more information about how to migrate or upgrade a Linux operating system, see Operating system migration (Linux).
For more information about how to migrate or upgrade a Windows operating system, see Operating system migration (Windows).