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217

answers:

1

We use Hyper-V extensively in our development environment. Each developer has a virtual server that they own and then we have a bunch of build, test, R&D, and staging virtual servers.

Is there any documented or best practice way to duplicate a virtual machine in Hyper-V?

What I would really like to be able to do is to split a machine from a snapshot and have multiple virtual machines that both roll up underneath a common root machines snapshot.

I don't mind having to run some tools or having to rejoin the domain, I just want the ability to spawn new machines from an existing snapshot.

Is this possible?

+1  A: 

I think the real problem is the duplication of servers on the Network - plus that evil kerberos-keys-getting-out-of-date issue that any offline copy of a Virtual Server can suffer.

I'd suggest creating a SysPreped image as the base and then create multiple machines from that. I don't think branching servers would be very wise (at least not on the same network).

Otherwise I'd just copy and paste the VHD to a new path and create a new server for each branch - keeping them in their own network space (and IP range).

Brody
I was hoping there were some hidden feature that would allow you to spawn a new server from an existing snapshot and would automatically handle the needed adjustments on that machine to make it work or would at least walk you through them.
spoon16
So was I but no luck so far
Brody