Upload virtual machine to AWS

In this step, we will use Amazon S3 to store the virtual machine files that have been exported from the on-premises virtualization environment.

Note: The S3 bucket name must be globally unique and cannot duplicate any existing bucket names.

To create an S3 bucket, follow these steps:

Access the Amazon S3 console.
- In the navigation bar, select Buckets.
- Click Create bucket to create a new S3 bucket.
On the Create bucket page, configure the S3 bucket parameters:
- In the General configuration section, select bucket type as General purpose, use Global namespace and enter a unique name for the bucket in the Bucket name field.
- Bucket name: Enter a name for the bucket. This name must be globally unique. (Example: import-bucket-2026-1a)
Uncheck the Block all public access option to allow public access. AWS will display a warning, select I acknowledge that the current settings might result in this bucket and the objects within becoming public.
- On the S3 Bucket creation screen, check the confirmation box to allow public access and select Disable in the Bucket Versioning section.
In the Default encryption section, select SSE-S3, check Enable for Bucket Key and click Create bucket to complete the initialization process.
The bucket is created successfully.

After creating the bucket, we will upload the virtual machine files that were exported from the on-premises virtualization environment.
- Access the S3 bucket you just created. (Example: import-bucket-2026-1a)
- In the Objects section, click Upload.
Drag and drop the virtual machine files into this window or click Add files to select the virtual machine files. Then click Upload. In this example, we created a virtual machine using VMware Workstation, and the virtual machine file is Ubuntu-disk1.vmdk.
The file upload process to the S3 bucket will take a certain amount of time (approximately 10 minutes).