Registering Amazon EC2 images with the cloud discovery service

To use the blueprint designer to model environments on Amazon Web Services, you must register Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) images with the cloud discovery service. EC2 is part of AWS. EC2 provides the virtual nodes in an environment, and other services in AWS provide services such as networking and data storage.

Before you register images, configure the cloud discovery service. See Setting up images, regions, and flavors for the cloud discovery service and engine.

From the EC2 web console, find the ID of the image to register.
Image IDs start with ami-, such as ami-abcd1234.

You can register virtual images that use a Linux™ or Windows™ operating system.
Open the cloud discovery service configuration file in a text editor.
In the amazon section, find the region for the image, such as us-east-1.

In the images section, add the image ID to the list of images.

For example, the following code from a configuration file includes three image IDs in the us-east-1 region.

"amazon": {
  "regions": [
    {
      "id": "us-east-1",
      "name": "US East (Northern Virginia)",
      "images": [
        "ami-abcd1234",
        "ami-1234abcd",
        "ami-5678abcd"

      ]
    }
  ]
},

Optional: In the images section, configure images names that contain asterisks (*) as wildcards.

All images that match the name pattern that you specify are displayed in the Images palette of the blueprint designer.

For example, the following code from a configuration file includes three specific image IDs and five image name patterns in the us-east-1 region.

"amazon": {
  "regions": [
    {
      "id": "us-east-1",
      "name": "US East (Northern Virginia)",
      "images": [
        "ami-abcd1234",
        "ami-1234abcd",
        "ami-5678abcd"
        "name:RHEL-*HVM*-20*-GP2",
        "name:suse-sles-12-sp*v20*hvm-ssd-x86_64*",
        "name:suse-sles-11-sp4*v20*hvm-ssd-x86_64*",
        "name:ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-*-amd64-server-2016*",
        "name:Windows_Server-20*English-64Bit-Base-2016*"
      ]
    }
  ]
},

Save the cloud discovery service configuration file.
Register the EC2 instance types that you provision with the cloud discovery service.
1. Back up the /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/clouddiscoveryservice/resources/clouds/instance_type_details.py file.
  For example, you might create a copy of the file and name it instance_type_details.py.old.
2. Open the instance_type_details.py file.
3. Find the region to customize, such as us-east-1.
4. In the REGION_DETAILS section, add the instance type IDs that you provision to the instance_types section for each region.
  To review the list of available EC2 instance types, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.
  For example, the following code from the instance_type_details.py file includes three instance types in the us-east-1 region.
```
REGION_DETAILS = {
    # US East (Northern Virginia) Region
    'us-east-1': {
        'endpoint': 'ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com',
        'api_name': 'ec2_us_east',
        'country': 'USA',
        'signature_version': '2',
        'instance_types': [
            't2.micro',
            'm3.medium',
            'm4.large'   
        ]
    }
}
```
5. In the INSTANCE_TYPES section, add the details for each instance type.
  Contact AWS support to obtain the instance type details.
  For example, the following code from the instance_type_details.py file includes details for the t2.micro, m3.medium, and m4.large instance types that are shown in the us-east-1 region.
```
INSTANCE_TYPES = {
    't2.micro': {
        'id': 't2.micro',
        'name': 't2.micro (Burstable Performance Micro Instance)',
        'ram': 1024,
        'disk': 0,  # EBS Only
        'bandwidth': None,
        'extra': {
            'cpu': 1
        }
    },
    'm3.medium': {
        'id': 'm3.medium',
        'name': 'm3.medium (Medium Instance)',
        'ram': 3840,
        'disk': 4000,
        'bandwidth': None
    },
    'm4.large': {
        'id': 'm4.large',
        'name': 'm4.large (Large Instance)',
        'ram': 8192,
        'disk': 32000,
        'bandwidth': None
    }
}
```
Save the instance_type_details.py file.
Restart the cloud discovery service.
To restart the cloud discovery service, see Starting the blueprint designer, cloud discovery service, and engine and Stopping the blueprint designer, cloud discovery service, and engine.