NetApp VSC 4.1 Series - Part 2/7: How to Create Rapid Clones

In part 1, we created an NFS datastore, now we’ll use the Rapid Clones feature of the VSC to populate it with some VMs.

vSphere Client > Home > Inventory > Hosts and Clusters (or the ‘VMs and Templates’ view)
- Select the VM to be rapid cloned
- Hit the “Create rapid clones” button.

Image: NetApp VSC 4.1 “Create rapid clones” button

Note: One thing that’s very nice about this tool is that it will check disk alignment before starting, and warn you if the VM you’ve picked for rapid cloning is not disk aligned correctly (the clones would end up being similarly misaligned).

Image: Example warning of trying to rapid clone a VM with VMDK files that are not aligned

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 1: Storage Controller details
- Select the ‘Target Storage Controller’ and click Next >

Image: Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 1

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 2: Clone Source
*This step is skipped since we’ve already selected a VM

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 3: Clone Destination
- Choose the host or cluster for the new clones and click Next >
Note: Optionally, can “Specify the virtual machine folder for the new clones”

Image: Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 3

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 4: Virtual machine folder
*This step is skipped unless you tick the “Specify the virtual machine folder for the new clones” from Step 3

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 5: Disk format
- Choose ‘Same format as source’ / ‘Thin provisioned format’ / ‘Thick format’ and click Next >

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 6: Virtual machine details
- Specify the details of the virtual machine clones (see example below) and click Next >

Image: Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 6 Example Specifications

Note i: The options for broker version are VMware View 4.5/4.6/5.0/5.1, and Citrix XenDesktop 4.0/5.0
Note ii: For the wizard, clones names can only contain A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and - characters!
Note iii: If you already have saved customizations in ‘vSphere Client > Home > Management > Customization Specifications Manager’, and the correct sysprep versions or similar installed on your vCenter, the ‘Apply customization specification?’ tick box can be checked.

Image: vSphere Client and vCenter’s ‘Customization Specifications Manager’

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 7: Datastore creation
*This step is skipped if the ‘Create new datastore(s)’ check box is not ticked in Step 6

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 8: Datastore selection
- Select a datastore to store the files for the virtual machine and click Next >

Note: Clicking the ‘Advanced >>’ button allows you to specify different datastores for configuration files and disks.

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 9: Connection broker
*This step is skipped if a ‘Connection broker version’ of none is selection in Step 6

Create Rapid Clones Wizard - Step 10: Summary
- Review the summary and if AOK click Apply

And that’s it. Wait a little bit and the clones are provisioned!

Image: vSphere Client Recent Tasks for NetApp rapid clone virtual machine

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