Large VM Cloning

[rmestry]

Hi!,

1)  While taking Cloing of Large VM and especially Database, what are the steps to follow ?

I have scenario where i want to take cloning of database server of around 2 TB size, every time i take Clone it fails giving message "Operation timed out" , i am taking clone of VM with is powered ON

2) Should i off the VM and then take Clone ? Any other way by which i can clone the VM when its ON, Excluding Disk of Database ?

3) What is the spead of Cloning While its ON Vs OFF VM ?

[santosh42]

Hello,

The best method to clone virtual machines with very large virtual disk is to power it off and then clone it.

when its tried to do with the vm powered on, there might be delay in I/O operations due to large disk and hence there might be time out errors.

There might be other methods to do it with keeping the vm on. i would leave that to the experts to answer.

[mrksiddiqui]

Anytime you are dealing with large and highly transactional database it is recommended that you should shut the server done before doing any P2V or V2V. However, there are tools that could allow you to automate this process. Like VMware Vconverter, Platespin, and so on. Vconverter will allow you to Stop the services before last syncronization step which bring the delta to the target server.