When you manually release an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance that is located in the classic network, you can convert the public IP address of the instance into an elastic IP address (EIP). EIPs can be associated as needed with ECS instances that are located in virtual private clouds (VPCs) for variety of scenarios such as network migration and flexible bandwidth adjustment. You can convert the public IP address of an ECS instance that is located in the classic network into an EIP only when you manually release the instance.

Prerequisites

Before you convert the public IP address of an ECS instance in the classic network into an EIP, make sure that the instance meets the following requirements:
  • The instance is assigned a public IP address.
  • The instance is not deployed in Hangzhou Zone C.
  • If the instance is a pay-as-you-go instance, it is in the Stopped state and you do not have overdue payments in your account.
  • If the instance is a subscription instance, it is in the Expired state.
    Note If a subscription instance in the classic network has expired, you can manually release the instance. When you release the instance, you can convert its public IP address of the instance into an EIP. If a subscription instance in the classic network has not expired, you can change its billing method to pay-as-you-go and then manually release the instance. When you release the instance, you can convert its public IP address into an EIP. For information about how to change the billing methods of instances, see Change the billing method of an instance from subscription to pay-as-you-go.
  • If the instance is a subscription instance, the instance uses the pay-by-traffic billing method for network usage. You can change the billing method for network usage from pay-by-bandwidth to pay-by-traffic by upgrading or downgrading instance configurations. For more information, see Overview of instance upgrade and downgrade.
  • If the configurations of the instance were changed, the new configurations have taken effect.
  • Snapshots are created to back up data and prevent data loss caused by accidental operations. For more information, see Create a snapshot for a disk.

Background information

After the public IP address of an ECS instance in the classic network is converted into an EIP, the following limits apply to the EIP:

  • The EIP is billed based on data transfers.
  • The public bandwidth of the EIP is the same as that of the ECS instance. You can increase the public bandwidth of the EIP in the VPC console. However, if the public bandwidth of the ECS instance is 0 Mbit/s, the public bandwidth of the EIP is 1 Mbit/s.
  • The EIP cannot be associated with an ECS instance in the classic network.
  • Unlike ECS instances in VPCs, ECS instances in the classic network have public network interface controllers (NICs). After the public IP address of an instance in the classic network is converted into an EIP, the public NIC is unbound from the instance and the MAC address of the NIC is released.

Procedure

  1. Log on to the ECS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Instances.
  3. In the top navigation bar, select a region.
  4. Find the ECS instance that you want to release and perform one of the following operations to release the instance:
    • To release a subscription instance, click Release in the Actions column.
    • To release a pay-as-you-go instance, choose More > Instance Status > Release in the Actions column.
  5. Select Release Now, select Convert the public IP address of the ECS instance in a classic network to an EIP address. (The EIP addresses that are not bound to ECS instances will be billed.), and then click Next.
    Convert the public IP address of the ECS instance in a classic network to an EIP address. (The EIP addresses that are not bound to ECS instances will be billed.)
  6. Click OK.

Result

After the public IP address of the ECS instance is converted into an EIP, the ECS instance is released. You can view the EIP in the VPC console. View the EIP

What to do next

You can associate this EIP with another ECS instance. For more information, see Associate an EIP with a cloud resource.