Final answer:
An EC2 instance cannot be moved directly between Availability Zones, but a similar outcome can be achieved by creating an AMI from the instance's EBS snapshot and launching a new instance from the AMI in a different AZ.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student has asked if an EC2 instance can be migrated between Availability Zones (AZs). The short answer is that, while you cannot directly move an existing EC2 instance from one AZ to another, you can achieve a similar result by taking a snapshot of your instance's Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume, creating an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) from that snapshot, and then launching a new EC2 instance in a different AZ using that AMI. This process is akin to a migration but involves creating a copy in the target AZ rather than moving the original instance itself.
It's important to note that each AZ represents a different physical location within a region, which means that this process can also be helpful for disaster recovery planning, as it effectively creates a backup of your instance that can be launched in a separate physical location in case of a failure.
To ensure data consistency, you should stop the source instance before creating the snapshot, if possible. After the new instance is running in the desired AZ, you can reassign any Elastic IPs, update your Domain Name System (DNS) records, and apply necessary configurations related to the new instance.