Add cross region image/snapshot copy functionality

[sopel]

The respective functionality is meanwhile available (see Cross Region EC2 AMI Copy) and would greatly complement the available image/snapshot backup functionality to increase resiliency.

• As a side effect it will also help with cross region CloudFormation stack operation, insofar the underlying AMIs do only need to be created once going forward.

[mrdavidlaing]

As a side effect it will also help with cross region CloudFormation stack operation, insofar the underlying AMIs do only need to be created once going forward.

Is that true? I though the config of the different region AMIs was different, eg for Ubuntu the use of different APT sources.

[sopel]

That's correct, but most of this can be remedied if desired, i.e. it depends on the particular scenario whether it is a) feasible and b) efficient to approach things like so.

I can imagine quite a few use cases where it will be much simpler/cheaper to go this route though rather than doing the right thing and automate AMI creation per region, hence I'll rephrase:

As a side effect it might also help with cross region CloudFormation stack operation, insofar, depending on the particular scenario, the underlying AMIs could alternatively be created once and copied to other regions.

[mrdavidlaing]

I agree with your updated assessment. Whilst using an AMI created for a different region might be marginally less technologically efficient; its almost guaranteed to be more human time efficient.

In our scenario, where we have an abundance of technological resources and a scarcity of human resources, copying the same AMI to different regions is probably the right way to go.