What's the different between a cloning a virtual machine and cloning a virtual machine template.

[prosate]

thought they are same function.

why do they have two type of provisioning of VM?

or By cloning the vm, u cant edit the configuration setting , only vm template allow to do that?

[SatyS]

A clone is a copy of a virtual machine. A template is a master copy of a virtual machine that can be used to create many clones.

If you need to create a copy of the VM you can use cloning. The same settings of the master VM will be available in the cloned VM. You can create, configure, and install software on a single virtual machine, and then clone it multiple times, rather than creating and configuring each virtual machine individually.

A template is a master copy of a virtual machine that can be used to create and provision virtual machines. Templates cannot be powered on or edited.

The template acts like a blueprint of the VM.