Migration of a Google Cloud Platform webserver virtual instance (from one account to another)

Question

I am looking for a comprehensive walkthrough of how to properly export a full disk/instance from Google Cloud Platform Account #1 to GCP Account #2.

This may not seem like a troubling issue for some of us, but a lot of careful learners will hesitate to do a migration of their webservers in fear it may corrupt the disk and/or cause networks issues due to change in network/HWID.

How would someone migrate a full webserver from one account to another.

Notes: No sharing (of the instance) is possible. It needs to be a fully autonomous (manual download of full disk) and not dependent of GCP project/instance sharing.

Answer 1

1. Shut down [Stop] your instance.
2. Go to this exact section: "Compute Engine > Images"
3. You should see "Create an image" in the main/body container (top-part)
4. Click and select "Disk" as a "Source" AND "your-instance-name" as "Source Disk"
5. Create the image
6. Prepare for export of the image to your Google Storage (Storage > Storage > Create folder)
7. Using the web-console: (gcloud compute images export --image= YOUR IMAGE NAME --destination- uri=gs://SOMEFOLDER/YOURIMAGE.vmdk --export-format=vmdk)
8. Navigate to your Storage Browser
9. Manually download the image that you just exported
10. In another browser, log into your alternate account and navigate to Storage > Storage
11. Upload you newly created/downloaded vmdk
12. Once fully uploaded, navigate to Compute Engine > Instances
13. Click on Create an Instance
14. In the "Source" section, select the "Virtual Disk" option
15. Use your gs://your-snapshot-img.vmdk path
16. Deploy the instance
17. Once done, you need to edit your DNS records to reflect your new IP.

If this is followed, the webserver should work properly and migration would be successful.

Make sure to edit/update all configs containing your old IP.