You make copies of your machines. Good. But there is a question almost nobody asks: where are those copies? In AWS, a snapshot is stored in the same region as the machine it comes from. That is, in the same group of data centres, in the same city. A fire, a flood, a serious power failure or a large-scale human error in that region would affect the machine and its copies at the same time. It has happened, rare as it is.
The solution is easy to understand: keep a copy of your snapshots in another region, hundreds or thousands of kilometres away. In AWS it can be done, but it does not happen on its own and it takes a while. This guide explains it for both kinds of machines, Lightsail and EC2, and shows you how to check that the copy is usable.
Before you start: what each thing means
- Region
- Each of the places in the world where Amazon has data centres: Paris, Ireland, Frankfurt, Virginia... You choose one when creating each machine. What you create in one region is not visible from another.
- Availability zone
- Within a region there are several separate buildings. They protect against small failures, but not against a problem affecting the whole region.
- Snapshot
- A complete copy of a machine's disk at a given moment. It is used to create an identical machine.
- Lightsail and EC2
- The two kinds of Amazon servers. Lightsail is the simple one, with a fixed monthly price and its own console. EC2 is the "made to measure" one. Snapshots are copied in a similar way in both, but from different consoles.
- AMI
- In EC2, the copy of the whole machine (all its disks plus what is needed to boot). It is what gets copied to another region so the machine can be brought up there.
- Contingency plan
- What you would do if your main region stopped working. Having copies in another region is half the plan; the other half is having tested bringing them up.
Step by step
Choose the backup region
Pick a different region, preferably far away but within the same legal area if you care about where the data is (for example, from Paris to Ireland or Frankfurt, both in the European Union). Write down its name as AWS spells it (for example
eu-west-1for Ireland). The copy will take up space there and is charged like normal snapshots, per GB per month.Lightsail: copy the snapshot
In the Lightsail console, Snapshots menu. Find the most recent snapshot of your machine (manual or automatic), click the three dots and choose Copy to another Region. Select the backup region and give it a name that says where it comes from and when it is from (
web-tienda-2026-10-26-desde-paris). Confirm. The copy takes from minutes to over an hour depending on size; meanwhile, you can carry on working.To see it, change the region at the top of the Lightsail console: copied snapshots appear in the destination region, not the source one.
EC2: create an image and copy it
In EC2 what gets copied to another region is an AMI, the complete image of the machine. If you do not have a recent one, create it: Instances, select the machine, Actions, Image and templates, Create image. When it is available, go to the AMIs menu, select it, Actions, Copy AMI, choose the destination region and a name, and confirm. If you want, tick encrypt for the copy. As in Lightsail, to see it you have to switch to the destination region at the top of the console.
Check that the copy is complete
Switch to the backup region and wait until the snapshot or AMI goes from "copying" or "pending" to available. Until then it is no use. If the copy fails (it happens sometimes with very large images), delete it and launch it again; you are not charged for what never completes.
Test bringing the machine up in the other region
This is what separates a copy from a plan. In the backup region, create a machine from the copy (Lightsail: snapshot menu, Create new instance; EC2: Launch instance from AMI). Log in, check that the website or application starts, and delete it: it was only to see that it works. It costs a few minutes of machine time and gives you the confidence that, the day it is needed, you will know how to do it in a hurry.
Write down somewhere what would be needed on the day of the disaster: changing the domain record to the new address (if your DNS is in Route 53, it takes minutes), reopening the firewall ports on the new machine, and the password or key to log in.
Make it routine, not a one-off
A six-month-old copy in another region is worth little. Decide on a cadence (every week is usually reasonable for a small business), set yourself a reminder and delete the old copies in the backup region so you do not pile up costs. In AWS this is not automated with one click: in Lightsail there is no automatic copy between regions, and in EC2 you need to configure Data Lifecycle Manager with a cross-region copy policy. If it depends on you remembering, you will end up not doing it; that is why, further down, the bit about Simplio.
What can go wrong
I cannot see the copy anywhere
You are looking at the source region. Copies appear only in the destination region: change it in the selector at the top of the console.
The machine brought up in the other region cannot be reached from the internet
It is born with the default firewall and a new address. Open the ports you use (443, for example) and, if it is there to stay, give it a static IP and point the domain to it. If it was only the test, there is no need.
The copy is huge and takes hours
Normal with large disks. Launch it in the afternoon and check it the next day. If the machine holds data you do not need to copy (temporary files, caches), clean them out before taking the snapshot.
I am worried about where the data ends up
Choose a backup region in the same jurisdiction (within the EU, for example) and, in EC2, tick encryption when copying. And if you have a data protection document, note the new region in it.
In Simplio
In Simplio this is a piece of cake: in each machine's backup schedule you tick "copy to another region", choose which one and how many to keep, and Simplio takes the snapshot, copies it and cleans up the old ones, every day or every week, without you having to remember. If a copy does not complete, it emails you. And from the same screen you can create the machine in the backup region the day it is needed.
The same task, in AWS and in Simplio
| In the AWS console | In Simplio | |
|---|---|---|
| Copy a snapshot to another region | Lightsail or EC2, copy menu, choose region, wait, switch region to check: 5 steps, 20 minutes | "Copy to another region" box in the backup schedule: done on its own every time |
| Do it every week and delete the old ones | Remember to; in EC2, configure Data Lifecycle Manager | Scheduled, with how many to keep in each region |
| Find out if a copy fails | Nothing warns you | Email alert |