Modern IT teams are under constant pressure to move faster. Application teams need realistic test environments. Infrastructure teams need safe ways to validate upgrades. Security & database teams need to test patches before production rollout. And everyone wants to do this without waiting hours for VM copies or consuming large amounts of additional storage.
That is why NetApp Backup and Recovery now provides the ability to quickly create VMware virtual machine clones by leveraging NetApp ONTAP FlexClone technology.
With this feature, customers can create space-efficient, writable clones of VMware VMs and spin them up quickly for testing, validation, troubleshooting, and upgrade scenarios.
For a small number of VMs, tradition restore method may be manageable. But for large application servers, database VMs, or multi-terabyte workloads, creating copy of VM can become slow depending on size of VM and the environment, and it can be expensive.
With this new enhancement, NetApp Backup and Recovery makes the VM clone process faster, simpler, and much more storage efficient .
This functionality allows teams to use backup data more actively — not just for recovery, but also for operational workflows such as:
- Application testing
- Patch validation
- Operating system upgrades
- Application version upgrades
- Dev/test environment creation
- Troubleshooting and root-cause analysis
- User acceptance testing
Here are the detailed steps:
- Login into the NetApp Console-> navigate to Protection->Backup and Recovery-> Vmware.
If you have not protected VMware VMs then follow documentation or my previous blog to configure protection of VMs - Go to Clone and click Create new clone
- Choose the relevant protection groups. Select VM or VMs to clone. Multiple VM can be selected to create clones of VM at same time
- Choose the snapshots to create clone
- Select the source of the snapshot primary or secondary ONTAP cluster
- Select the destination vCenter/ESXi host & network settings and click Clone
- Space-efficient copy of VM got create in few minutes.
- The cloned VM is registered in VMware vCenter, and can be powered on. Make sure to validate and change the ip/ hostname to avoid any conflicts. The clone VM can be deleted from NetApp Backup and Recovery. If VM need to persist for long time then temporary clone can be converted to permanent independent workload by selecting Split.
One of the biggest advantages of this capability is operational simplicity. Administrators do not need to manually create storage clones, mount datastores, register VMs, and perform multiple disconnected steps across different tools. NetApp Backup and Recovery streamlines the workflow so VMware VM clones can be created and managed more easily from a centralized experience. This helps reduce manual effort, minimizes operational complexity, and enables teams to respond faster to application and infrastructure requests.
Final thoughts:
NetApp Backup and Recovery helps customers get more value from their protected data. This capability helps transform backup data from something used only during recovery into an active resource for everyday IT operations.
For teams managing VMware environments, this means less waiting, less storage waste, and more confidence when making changes. With NetApp Backup and Recovery, spinning up a production-like VM for testing is now faster, simpler, and significantly more efficient.
Try it out and let us know what you think. We'd love to hear your feedback. Drop your comments below or reach out to your NetApp account team.
