Saturday, March 3, 2012

VMware ESX “I moved it” or “I copied it”?

When you copy or move the data store location of an existing VM you will be presented with a message box in the vCenter Client asking if your VM has either been ‘moved’ or ‘copied’.

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“I Moved It”

By indicating that you had moved the VM (instead of copying it) the only UUID change that is made to the configuration file is to the ‘uuid.location’ setting, which as you’d expect indicates a change of location for the VM. The ‘uuid.bios’ and the existing generated network MAC address remains that same. You will also notice that the CPUID settings have also changed which is also the case for when you indicate that the VM was copied. The “I Moved It” option should be used when ‘moving’ the location of where a VM resides and a copy of the VM has not been made.

“I Copied It”

When you select that the VM has been copied then there a few more changes that are made to the VM’s configuration file when compared to just moving it.  These changes are to the ‘uuid.bios’, ‘uuid.location’ and as a result of these changes a newly generated network MAC address (ethernet.generatedaddress). The “I Copied It” option should be used when you’ve made, and intend to run, more than one copy of the VM in your vSphere environment.

Summary

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