Abstract: Natural language commands are automatically mapped to application programming interface (API) functions of web-based services. Grammatical rules may be applied to the APIs in order to classify the actions of the APIs, in some embodiments, generating mappings between the natural language commands and the APIs. When a natural language input is received and a natural language command identified form the natural language input, the corresponding API indicated in the mapping may be invoked.

Abstract: A migration system or service may implement event-driven replication for migrating a computing resource from a source network to a destination network. A replication event may be detected to obtain a state of a data volume for a computing resource hosted in a client network. A request to a replication agent hosted in the source network may instruct the replication agent to copy at least some of the data of the data volume and send the data to the destination network. The migration service may generate a state of the data volume from the received data in a format that is operable to host the computing resource in the destination network and store the generated state of the data volume.

Abstract: A network discovery service provides pattern-based techniques to discover relationships between hosts in a network employing address translation. Agents are deployed to hosts of the network. To configure an agent, the discovery service obtains outbound transmission data from the agent, which indicates outbound network transmissions that were established by the host. One or more unique outbound transmission patterns are provided to the agent, based on analysis of the outbound transmission data. Inbound transmission data is then received from the agents. The inbound transmission data indicates transmission events at the host devices, as well as the source for each of the open and close events. The inbound transmission data is analyzed to identify occurrences of the outbound transmission patterns. Based on the analysis, communication relationships between the host devices is determined. In some cases, communication relationships between individual processes on different hosts may be determined.

Abstract: Migrating servers from client networks to virtual machines (VMs) on a provider network. A migration appliance is installed or booted on the client network, and a migration initiator is instantiated on the provider network. A VM and associated volumes are instantiated on the provider network. The initiator sends a request for a boot sector to the appliance; the appliance reads the blocks from a volume on the client network, converts the blocks to a format used by the VM, and sends the blocks to the initiator. The initiator boots the VM using the boot sector and the VM begins execution. The initiator then retrieves all data blocks for the VM from volumes on the client network via the appliance, stores the data to the volumes on the provider network, and fulfills requests from the VM from either local volumes or the remote volumes via the appliance.

Abstract: Techniques for self-organizing server migration into service provider systems are described. Connectors can be deployed in a customer network and associated with one or more virtual machine (VM) management servers and also with a server migration service. The customer may indicate what VMs are to be migrated, and the server migration service can dynamically select one or more of the connectors to perform migration operations based on operational or configuration characteristics of the connectors and/or the type of migration job to be performed. The connectors can be auto-scaled to increase or decrease operational capacity, and graceful failovers can be performed to eliminate migration failures resulting from connector failures.

Abstract: Techniques for graph-based generation of dependency-adherent execution plans for data center migration are described. One or more agents and/or connectors can be deployed to a first network to collect data that can be used, by a server migration service, to identify resources operating in the first network and dependencies between the resources. A graph of the resources can be constructed and processed to remove any bi-dependencies and cycles from the graph that may exist. The resulting graph can be topologically sorted and used to automatically generate a migration plan for the resources that preserves dependencies between resources so that upon each resource being migrated, its inter-resource dependencies are satisfied.

Abstract: Various systems and processes may be used for virtual disk importation. In particular implementations, systems and processes for virtual disk importation may include the ability to receive a request from a customer of a service provider network to import a virtual disk, which is accessible over a communication network, into the service provider network. The systems and processes may also include the ability to download a portion of a virtual disk file corresponding to the virtual disk, determine the type of the virtual disk by analyzing the downloaded portion, and determine the size of the virtual disk by analyzing the downloaded portion. The systems and processes may further include the ability to determine whether the virtual disk is supported by the service provider network based on the determined type of the virtual disk and download the virtual disk if the virtual disk is supported by the service provider network.

Abstract: Techniques are described for importing and using virtual machine images in configured manners, such as by a virtual machine image importation service on behalf of clients. An image may be retrieved based on a client-provided location, and various characteristics of the image may be identified via application of multiple heuristic or other assessment tests to various aspects of the retrieved image such as a master boot record, filesystem, or directory structure of the image to determine a testing vector that is compared to identification vectors associated with known operating systems, in order to automatically determine a specific operating system installed on the image to be imported. Modifications may be made to drivers, configuration and system files of the retrieved image based on the identified operating system and other image characteristics.

Abstract: Migrating servers from client networks to virtual machines (VMs) on a provider network. A migration appliance is installed or booted on the client network, and a migration initiator is instantiated on the provider network. A VM and associated volumes are instantiated on the provider network. The initiator sends a request for a boot sector to the appliance; the appliance reads the blocks from a volume on the client network, converts the blocks to a format used by the VM, and sends the blocks to the initiator. The initiator boots the VM using the boot sector and the VM begins execution. The initiator then retrieves all data blocks for the VM from volumes on the client network via the appliance, stores the data to the volumes on the provider network, and fulfills requests from the VM from either local volumes or the remote volumes via the appliance.

Abstract: Migrating servers from client networks to virtual machines (VMs) on a provider network. A migration appliance is installed or booted on the client network, and a migration initiator is instantiated on the provider network. A VM and associated volumes are instantiated on the provider network. The initiator sends a request for a boot sector to the appliance; the appliance reads the blocks from a volume on the client network, converts the blocks to a format used by the VM, and sends the blocks to the initiator. The initiator boots the VM using the boot sector and the VM begins execution. The initiator then retrieves all data blocks for the VM from volumes on the client network via the appliance, stores the data to the volumes on the provider network, and fulfills requests from the VM from either local volumes or the remote volumes via the appliance.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for updating virtual machines (VMs) on a provider network according to modifications made to a server in a client network. A version of the server may be currently instantiated and executing as one or more VM instances on the provider network. Agent(s) installed on the server in the client network intercept write requests to volume(s) attached to the server, and send blocks that include updates to the server volume(s) to a service on the provider network. The service stores the blocks to incremental snapshots, and generates timestamped machine images (MIs) of the server from the snapshots. A VM service updates the VM instances on the provider network according to the MIs. Thus, the VM instances can be kept up to date with changes to the server without having to upload the entire volume(s) to the provider network to perform each update.

Abstract: Techniques are described for importing and using virtual machine images in configured manners, such as by a virtual machine image importation service on behalf of clients. An image may be retrieved based on a client-provided location, and various characteristics of the image may be identified via application of multiple heuristic or other assessment tests to various aspects of the retrieved image such as a master boot record, filesystem, or directory structure of the image to determine a testing vector that is compared to identification vectors associated with known operating systems, in order to automatically determine a specific operating system installed on the image to be imported. Modifications may be made to drivers, configuration and system files of the retrieved image based on the identified operating system and other image characteristics.

Abstract: Techniques are described for generating and using virtual machine images and other software images in configured manners, such as by an image generating service on behalf of clients. An image may be configured to include or use multiple underlying components to construct the image, and specified configuration information may cause the generating process for the image to be triggered when underlying construction components change or otherwise when specified triggering conditions are satisfied. For example, an image to be manufactured may include a software program under development by a software developer client, with code files used to create the software program being among the construction components, such that client actions involving those code files (e.g., committing a new version with recent changes to a code repository) triggers a new version of the image to be manufactured that incorporates those changes.

Abstract: Techniques are described for importing and using virtual machine images in configured manners, such as by a virtual machine image importation service on behalf of clients. An image may be retrieved based on a client-provided location, and various characteristics of the image may be identified via application of multiple heuristic or other assessment tests to various aspects of the retrieved image such as a master boot record, filesystem, or directory structure of the image to determine a testing vector that is compared to identification vectors associated with known operating systems, in order to automatically determine a specific operating system installed on the image to be imported. Modifications may be made to drivers, configuration and system files of the retrieved image based on the identified operating system and other image characteristics.

Abstract: Remote computing resource service providers allow customers to execute one or more applications in a virtual environment on computer systems provided by the computing resource service provider. The customer applications are generally executed by multiple virtual machine instances working together. The virtual machines may be managed by a hypervisor executing on computer systems operated by the service provider. Different hypervisors may support different features and have different capabilities. Customers may wish to execute the one or more applications on a particular hypervisor in order to utilize certain features. A control plane may be used to facilitate management of the virtual environment by one or more services of the computing resource service provider.

Abstract: Systems and techniques are described for load balancing between WAN optimization devices. During operation, a mapping is determined based solely or partially on capacities of a set of remote WAN optimization devices and capacities of a set of local WAN optimization devices, wherein the mapping maps each remote WAN optimization device to a local WAN optimization device. Next, connection requests are directed to WAN optimization devices based on the mapping.