The first step of cloning an Oracle database that runs on a VM is to create a VM. There are various options here: We can certainly create a new VM from scratch, install the OS from the ISO, apply any OS patches if required to bring it to the same version level as the OS on the source VM, set kernel parameters to the Oracle recommended values, create users and groups, etc. As we can see, this method is too long and error-prone.
A better approach would be to leverage the features provided by the VMware platform and create a template or clone from the production VM itself. Not only would it already have the required OS and Oracle patches applied, but it would also have the OS parameters optimized for use for an Oracle database.
In the Hosts and Clusters view, right-click on the source VM, and select Clone -> Clone to Virtual Machine. The Clone Existing Virtual Machine wizard opens up. Provide the required details for the new clone. In the Select clone options screen, make sure to select the checkbox to Customize this virtual machine's hardware option.
The next screen will allow customization of the Clone VM. Delete the 3 RDM disks.
The Ready to complete screen will show that the 3 hard disks will be removed.
Click on Finish to submit the task to create the clone VM - vm-ora-prdm-dev-01.
After the task completes, power-on the VM and launch the console to view the OS boot progress. It's quite likely that the OS boot process will hang, because during boot it'll try to mount the /u01 file system which is not available. Note that the volume for /u01 was on one of the 3 disks that we removed while customizing the VM clone. Enter the root password to get to the console, comment the appropriate line for /u01 in /etc/fstab and reboot the VM. Do not delete this line as we will be uncommenting it at a later step. The OS should be able to boot now. Assign a new IP address and make sure that it is able to connect to the network. Do not change the hostname of the clone VM .