Last November I let you know that were were planning to increase the length of the resource IDs for EC2 instances, reservations, EBS volumes, and snapshots in 2016. Early this year I showed you how to opt in to the new format for EC2 instances and EC2 reservations.

Effective today you can now opt in to the new format for volumes and snapshots for EBS and Storage Gateway.

As I said earlier:

If you build libraries, tools, or applications that make direct calls to the AWS API, now is the time to opt in and to start your testing process! If you store the IDs in memory or in a database, take a close look at fixed-length fields, data structures, schema elements, string operations, and regular expressions. Resources that were created before you opt in will retain their existing short identifiers; be sure that your revised code can still handle them!

You can opt in to the new format using the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, or by calling the ModifyIdFormat API function.

Opting In – Console

To opt in via the Console, simply log in, choose EC2, and click on Resource ID length management:

Then click on Use Longer IDs for the desired resource types:

Note that volume applies to EBS volumes and to Storage Gateway volumes and that snapshot applies to EBS snapshots (both direct and through Storage Gateway).

For information on using the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) or the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, take a look at They’re Here – Longer EC2 Resource IDs Now Available.

Things to Know

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you transition to the new resource IDs:

Some of the older versions of the AWS SDKs and CLIs are not compatible with the new format. Visit the Longer EC2 and EBS Resource IDs FAQ for more information on compatibility. New AWS Regions get longer instance, reservation, volume, and snapshot IDs by default. You can opt out for Regions that launch between now and December 2016. Starting on April 28, 2016, new accounts in all commercial regions except China (Beijing) and AWS GovCloud (US) will get longer instance and reservation IDs by default, again with the ability to opt out.

— Jeff;