Cloning Vms

[aetius1980]

Hi,

Is there a train of thought on the best way to clone a virtual machine? Whether it should be powered on or off. I've noticed in the past that live vms can suffer outtages during the cloning process.

I need to do this to increase the disk space of a Windows 2003 server. My plan is to clone the 2003 server as a backup. Attach the 2003 vmdk file to a 2008 vm, then edit the settings, expand the disk and use Windows disk manager in 2008 to expand the disk. Then power off the 2008 server, detach the disk and boot the 2003 server as normal.

In effect, I'll be using the 2008 server to expand the disk of the 2003.

The main question is whether the vm should be powered off during the cloning process.

Thanks

[iw123]

Hi

what you have said will work fine. You could also use a boot disk such as Windows PE to boot your windows 2003 server to, then expand the disk using disk part, as an alternative

Regarding cloning the VM, It should be fine to do it whilst the VM is up. Just set the network for the clone so that it is on an isolated network, then boot it up to make sure that it is working ok before you make any changes.

Thanks

[RanjnaAggarwal]

no there is no requirement that the vm should be powered off

[nielse]

Have you read Extending partitions in Windows using DiskPart? This might help you in a faster way.

[aetius1980]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the  replies. My colleague informed me of a neat little trick to expand the disk on a 2003 VM in a quick way:

1. Whilst 2003 Vm is powered on, right click edit settings, increase the disk size as needed.

2. On a 2008 server (NOT R2!!) Open disk management via the mmc snapin (you need to start a new mmc snapin, otherwise the "connect to another

    computer" option is not shown).

3. Choose the option to connect to another computer and connect to your 2003 server

4. Right click on the 2003 system disk and hit extend

2003 system disk on a production server expanded with 0 downtime

I think there are some caveats such as the 2003 server and 2008 should be in the same domain.

Also, this doesn't work with 2008 R2.

[Cyberfed27]

Can't you install the VMware converter stand alone software on the machine, edit the clone settings to reflect a larger drive, then clone.

I believe this works for Windows 2003 the clone will have the resized drive. No messing around with diskpart ect..

In fact I know this works because I recall doing it on one of my Win2K3 machines that was low on disk space on C:, when I converted it to a VM I bumped it up in the settings (prior to cloning) and viola! A new VM with more space.

In this scenario it will be a hot migration.