How to schedule backup of EC2 Instance (AMI)

To schedule EC2 AMI backup follow these steps:

Select EC2 from the Main Menu to go to EC2 Section.

Select AWS Account and Region for the EC2 Instance you want to schedule backup.

On the EC2 Instance list, from the menu select Schedule AMI Backup.

In the scheduler window under the Schedule section, select image (AMI) frequency: Hourly, Daily, or Monthly.

Optional settings for AMI:

Description – Applied to new image

Template – Name of pre-configured description template. You can read more about description templates in Introduction to Description Templates

Copy AMI to Different Region – Specify additional Region(s) where new images are copied after creation (cross-region image)

Tags – You can create multiple Tags to apply to new snapshots. To add a Tag, enter tag name, tag value, and click Add. To apply the same tags to an AMI-created snapshot, check the Image Snapshots Inherited AMI Tags option.

Once you specify Description, Template, or Tags, settings are also applied to the cross-region images.

When you complete configuration, click Save.

A new row appears in the table below AMI options.

In the same row are three options: Edit, Delete, and Suspend.

The first two allow you to modify or delete given scheduler; the Suspend option allows you to temporarily suspend execution of scheduler, without deleting it. When you click Suspend, the option will change to Resume, which allows the suspended schedule to be resumed in the future.

By repeating the above steps, you can create multiple schedulers for the same EC2 Instance according to different specifications.

To apply the same scheduler configuration to multiple EC2 Instances, please visit Introduction to Scheduler Templates