I need help duplicating Amazon AWS EC2 instances

Question

I'm just getting started with AWS EC2 and not entirely sure I understand it.

From what I've read, an instance is basically a virtual server, and you should be able to somehow "duplicate" that virtual server from the AWS console somehow. Then use Load Balancer or Elastic IP to route requests to one or the other.

The problem comes in when I try to "duplicate" my instance. I tried a million things, but the only thing that got me close was creating an AMI of my current instance then launching an instance from that, but when I did that, the new instance was basically the default server config. None of my files was there.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Now, you can just create an AMI which will create snapshots and provide you with the exact same duplicate of your instance. Just click on an Instance, and then create an AMI. But anything running on it will be dead when you reboot just like a normal computer.