Cloning a VVol VM from a point in time snapshot

Alright, almost done with this long KB now. Woo Hoo! Next I want to cover how to clone a VM from a specific point in time. There was a specific snapshot X days ago that I want to clone this VM to. I'll go ahead and cover this process in a couple ways. One is with the plugin and then the other is without the plugin. I would strongly recommend using the plugin for this.

With both methods, it's a good idea to just clone the existing VM. That way all of the hardware settings and VM configs are mirrored. You can do this manually, but it's easier to just clone the VM. In my example I didn't change the Network Adapter or modify the VM itself. I also did not power it on, as that would cause a disruption to the existing VM and any applications on it. For the sake of making the image/recording shorter those steps were skipped.

Here is an example of cloning the VM and I'll be using the same cloned VM in both examples. I'll also be using a managed snapshot as the Point in Time I want to use.

>> Click to expand the Clone Example.

Alright, lets get to the examples.

With the Pure vSphere Web Client Plugin

With the Pure vSphere Web Client Plugin you can easily import or overwrite a VVol VMs Virtual Disks. Navigate to the FlashArray Virtual Volume Objects tab on the VVol VM and you can manage these workflows from there.

>> Click to expand the example that uses the Plugin.

Here virtual disk 1 on the cloned VM is getting overwritten with a snapshot of virtual disk 1 on the original VM.

Here virtual disk 2 on the cloned VM is getting overwritten with a snapshot of virtual disk 2 on the original VM. The same PiT is used for both Virtual Disk 1 and 2.

Nice and Easy! Now you can update the network adapter, VM settings, etc (if you haven't already) and power on the VM to make sure everything looks good.

Without the Pure vSphere Web Client Plugin

You can still use a Point in Time managed snapshot or FlashArray Snapshot to overwrite that cloned VM without the Plugin. However, you will need to log into the FlashArray in order to overwrite those volumes. In the example below Data VVol 1 is Data-59092202 and Data VVol 2 is Data-a6a5c589.

>> Click to expand the example without using the Plugin.

Here are the two Data VVols that I will need to overwrite on the FlashArray.

I am going to use these two volumes to copy out. They are from a Managed Snapshot. Alternatively I could use an array based snapshot, I would just need to locate the correct data volumes to copy out.

These are the two data VVols that are going to be overwritten.

Here is an example of overwriting data VVol 1.

And here is an example of overwriting data VVol 2.

The plugin workflow is a bit easier and quicker to run through. You also won't need to log into the FlashArray to run through the workflow. Overall I'd strongly recommend using the plugin for these workflows if they are one offs or exceptions. If this workflow is something that will be happening often or needs to happen often, then PowerCLI or vRO would be recommended. Once some blog posts or other KBs are done with those workflows we'll update this KB to reflect them.