Posted On: Oct 14, 2022

Starting today, we are adding service quotas for Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). You will now see three new quotas in the EC2 section on the Service Quotas console page. The first quota is for the total number of AMIs within your AWS account, the second quota is for the total number of public AMIs within your AWS account, and the third quota is on the number of shares you can have for each AMI. These quotas are added by default for all AWS accounts and do not require any action from you. Each quota is per AWS account per AWS Region.

Previously, you could generate an unlimited number of AMIs and share them publicly using one AWS account. However, a run-away script could potentially create tens of thousands of AMIs, causing significant clean-up costs and efforts. These new quotas help govern the total number and shares of AMIs, reducing accumulation of resources and associated costs. You can view and request to change those new quotas on AMIs using AWS service quotas control.

Service Quotas for AMIs are enabled in all AWS commercial regions with the exception of Amazon Web Services China (Beijing, operated by Sinnet), and Amazon Web Services China (Ningxia, operated by NWCD) Regions. To know more about this feature, please refer to the documentation here.