Retirement of classic network ECS instances - - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

Dear Alibaba Cloud customer, Alibaba Cloud will retire services for classic network ECS instances on February 28, 2025. We recommend migrating your classic network instances to a VPC promptly to prevent them from being released or becoming unavailable.

Note

Instances in a VPC are not affected.

Background

Since the launch of Alibaba Cloud's public cloud services in 2011, the classic network architecture has provided network support for ECS and served many customers. In 2014, Alibaba Cloud introduced new cloud products based on the VPC architecture, offering customers a better choice in terms of security, stability, flexibility, and performance. Over the years, the VPC architecture has become the default choice for most cloud users. Therefore, we are retiring classic network ECS instances.

Note

To minimize the impact on your workloads, Alibaba Cloud is providing an ample time window for you to migrate ECS instances from the classic network to a VPC. This transition period allows you to plan, test, and execute your migration strategy. Alibaba Cloud will also provide migration tools, documentation, and professional support to ensure a smooth migration.

Retirement timeline and impact

Scope	Milestone	Impact
All regions	Starting 00:00 on July 25, 2024 (UTC+8): Shortened renewal period	The renewal period for your existing subscription classic network ECS instances cannot extend beyond February 27, 2025. The maximum subscription duration for new purchases is shortened to six months. If you require a longer subscription, you must migrate the instances to a VPC.
	Starting 00:00 on August 27, 2024 (UTC+8): New purchase restrictions	The sale of subscription classic network ECS instances will be discontinued. You can still purchase pay-as-you-go ECS instances in the classic network or purchase new ECS instances in a VPC.
	Starting 00:00 on September 24, 2024 (UTC+8): All new purchases stopped	The sale of all classic network ECS instances, including pay-as-you-go and spot instances, will be discontinued. All Alibaba Cloud accounts will be unable to create classic network resources.
	Starting 00:00 on October 30, 2024 (UTC+8): Renewals stopped	Renewals for subscription classic network ECS instances will be disabled. You will no longer be able to renew these instances.
	Starting 00:00 on February 28, 2025 (UTC+8): Service discontinuation	Alibaba Cloud will discontinue all services for classic network ECS instances. If you still have classic network instances that have not been migrated: For expired subscription instances and existing spot instances in the classic network, Alibaba Cloud will forcibly release them. For unexpired subscription instances and existing pay-as-you-go instances in the classic network, Alibaba Cloud will perform a backend migration to a VPC: Migration details During the migration, the ECS instance will be stopped and restarted. The backend migration will attempt to move the instance into one of your eligible VPCs and vSwitches. If none exist, Alibaba Cloud automatically creates them for you. However, due to the potential complexity of your business architecture, we cannot fully guarantee business continuity or network connectivity. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you complete the migration yourself before this date. To minimize business impact, the migration preserves your instance ID, disk serial number, disk ID, username, password, private IP address, and public IP address (if your instance has public bandwidth). Billing You are not charged for the migration, and the migration process does not incur additional fees. The unit price of an ECS instance type does not change before and after the migration. After you migrate ECS instances from the classic network to VPCs, all ineffective or unpaid orders related to the instances that were placed when the instances were in the classic network are canceled.

Migration plan

Step 1: Find your classic network instances

Note

Starting August 1, 2024, Alibaba Cloud will begin sending event notifications. If you have not yet received a notification, you can use Method 1 or Method 2 to check for affected instances.

Method 1: ECS console

Log in to the ECS console.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Instance.
In the upper-left corner of the page, select a region and resource group.
On the Instances page, find the Network Type column and set the filter to Classic Network to list all classic network ECS instances in the current region.
Note
Make sure to check for instances in all of your regions.

Method 2: OpenAPI

Go to the OpenAPI Portal and call the DescribeInstances API operation.

Configure the following request parameters and call the operation to query all classic network ECS instances in a specific region.

Note

Make sure to check for instances in all of your regions.

Parameter

Description

Example

RegionId

The region ID of the instance. You can call DescribeRegions to view the latest list of Alibaba Cloud regions.

cn-hangzhou

InstanceNetworkType

The network type of the instance. Valid values:

classic: The classic network.
vpc: A VPC.

classic

Method 3: Event notifications

Log in to the ECS console.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Events.
On the events page, select the Instance migration events due to upgrades at underlying layer tab. You can view all classic network instances that require migration.
If a number appears on the Instance migration events due to upgrades at underlying layer tab, it indicates that you have pending events, as shown in the following figure.

The following table describes the event details.

Event code	Event name	Event level	CloudMonitor event name	Description and impact	Recommended action
SystemUpgrade.Migrate	Instance migration due to underlying infrastructure upgrade	Critical	Undefined	This system event is sent in advance when Alibaba Cloud upgrades or modifies its physical infrastructure that may affect instances in the affected region and zone.	Log on to the ECS console to view the details of the system event and migrate the instance as prompted. For more information, see Step 2: Migrate an ECS instance from the classic network to a VPC.

Step 2: Migrate to a VPC

To avoid disruptions to your business, we recommend migrating your classic network ECS instances to a VPC, which is free of charge. Compared to the classic network, instances in a VPC are more secure, support a richer set of features and instance types, and provide a more secure and flexible cloud computing experience.

Migration scenario	Recommended solution and considerations
The instance is in the classic network.	Solution 1: Use the instance migration plan feature to migrate one or more ECS instances from the classic network to a VPC. For more information, see Migrate ECS instances from the classic network to a VPC. Solution 2: Migrate the ECS instance by using a snapshot and an image. After the migration is complete, you must configure ClassicLink for the new instance. For more information, see Use OOS to migrate ECS instances and Overview of ClassicLink.
Other cloud products, such as ApsaraDB RDS or ApsaraDB for Redis, are also in the classic network.	An ECS instance in a VPC cannot directly access an ApsaraDB RDS instance in the classic network over the internal network. Therefore, you must switch the RDS instance to a VPC and enable hybrid access mode. This provides the RDS instance with both a classic network endpoint and a VPC endpoint. For more information, see Best practices for migrating all instances from the classic network to a VPC, Hybrid access to ApsaraDB services.
Migrating instances with older images (such as Windows Server 2003 and CentOS 5.8 or earlier).	After migrating an instance that uses an older image, such as Windows Server 2003 or CentOS 5.8 or earlier, you may encounter issues such as a kernel panic, a blue screen error, or an INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error. For solutions, see How do I troubleshoot instance downtime after migration?

For more information, see Instance migration events.