Posted On: May 9, 2016

In January, Amazon Web Services announced that longer IDs for EBS volumes and snapshots would be available in April. Starting today, you can opt in to using longer volume and snapshot IDs for EBS and Storage Gateway using APIs or the Amazon Web Services Management Console.  

In addition, starting April 28th, all newly created Amazon Web Services accounts will use longer EC2 instance and reservation IDs by default in all regions except China (Beijing) and Amazon GovCloud (US). If you have not yet tested your systems for compatibility with longer EC2 instance and reservation IDs, you still have the option to request the shorter ID format if necessary. Starting in June, all new Amazon Web Services accounts will automatically default to longer volume and snapshot IDs as well. For new Amazon Web Services regions launching later in 2016, all accounts will default to longer EC2 and EBS IDs, with the option to opt out if needed.

We strongly recommend testing your systems and opting into the longer ID format before December 2016. After you opt in, only new instances, reservations, volumes, or snapshots will receive longer IDs; existing resources will not be affected. Some Amazon Web Services CLI and SDK versions are not compatible with longer IDs. From December, all new instances, reservations, volumes, and snapshots will be created with longer IDs.

For instructions regarding how to opt in to longer IDs, visit the Amazon Web Services Blog. More information about timelines, testing procedures, a full list of affected tools and compatible versions, and more can be found on the EC2 FAQ and the EC2 User Guide. If you have questions, please contact the Amazon Web Services support team