Cloning VM/vApp to different DataStore

[BrianRTS]

Hi all,

I am working off of Ruben garcia's excellent linked clone scripts and one thing I am trying to add is to have the vApp created on a differnt datastore.

# Clone and move vms

foreach ($vm in $vms){

     $vm=$vm| get-view

     $vmname=$cloneName +"-" + $vm.name

     .\LcloneVM $vm.name -cloneName "$vmname"  -PortGroup "$PortGroup"

     get-vm -name $vmname | move-vm -destination $vapp;

The VM's are getting cloned and then inserted in the vApp name passed along as a parameter but I cant figure out how to have the vApp get created on a datastore that I specify. Right now the vApp gets created on the same datastore where the linked clones reside. I can move them after from the UI using the migrate command but I want to automate it if possible.

I thought the following line would work but the vApp fails during creation so the move-vm command fails later on.

# Create vApp

$vapp = $host_name | new-vapp -name "$cloneName" -Datastore "ThinDiskTesting";

I'm at a loss to what im doing wrong

Message was edited by: BrianRTS - Fix formatting

[LucD · Accepted solution]

You can specify the datastore where you want to create linked clone delta files.

This requires a small change to Ruben's script

# Generate specs for clone 
$cloneSpec = new-object Vmware.Vim.VirtualMachineCloneSpec
 $cloneSpec.Snapshot = $sourceVM.Snapshot.CurrentSnapshot
 $cloneSpec.Location = new-object Vmware.Vim.VirtualMachineRelocateSpec
 $cloneSpec.Location.DiskMoveType = [Vmware.Vim.VirtualMachineRelocateDiskMoveOptions]::createNewChildDiskBacking
 $cloneSpec.Location.Datastore = (Get-Datastore -Name $tgtDatastoreName).ExtensionData.MoRef

The Datastore property is used to indicate where the clone should be located.

Or do you want create the clones and then move them ?

[BrianRTS]

Thanks! I'll make the change to the vApp script and test on Tuesday. Will assign points ASAP

Sent from my iPad

[LucD]

No hurry, remember that you will have to provide the datastorename in this $tgtDatastoreName variable.