Clone a virtual machine

Before you begin

You have a datastore that contains one or more virtual machines. See Create a datastore.

Procedure overview

You clone a virtual machine to create an exact copy of its data and settings. Compared to a VMware clone of a virtual machine, which involves creating a copy of all associated virtual machine data, a clone of a virtual machine on HPE OmniStack hosts takes significantly less time to complete. Since all virtual machine data is already stored on the hosts, there is no need to create blocks of data, which means cloning completes faster without heavy I/O impact.

Procedure

  1. Click Virtual Machines.
  2. Right-click the virtual machine you want to clone and click All HPE SimpliVity Actions > Clone Virtual Machine.
  3. In the Clone virtual machine name field, leave the automatically generated name for the cloned virtual machine or enter a new name.
  4. Click Next.
  5. Leave Crash consistent selected to create the clone from this type of backup (appropriate for virtual machines with nondatabase applications) or select Application Consistent to create the clone from an application-consistent backup (appropriate for virtual machines with database applications).
  6. If using application consistent method, select one of the following:
    • VMware snapshot: Preserves the state of the virtual machine and includes all the data at a specific point in time. However, if the application is experiencing moderate to high rates of I/O, this backup process could take many hours and impact performance.

    • Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services: Saves time when creating the backup. VSS uses application-specific writers to freeze the application and database and ensures that all the data transferring from one file to another is captured and consistent. Once VSS creates a shadow copy and the application is in a consistent state, it resumes writes against the application. VSS oversees the process and ensures it takes 10 to 60 seconds to complete.

    For more information on application consistent backups, refer to Application-consistent backups in the Help.

  7. Click Finish.