Note
Access to this page requires authorization. You can try signing in or changing directories.
Access to this page requires authorization. You can try changing directories.
[This documentation is for preview only, and is subject to change in later releases. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]
You can create a new virtual environment by making a copy of an existing virtual environment. Copying a virtual environment resembles creating a new environment from virtual machine templates, but with one important difference:
- When you create a new virtual environment from virtual machine template, you have the option of setting various properties on the environment, including hardware and OS profiles. When you create a copy of an environment, you do not have that flexibility. The new copy will exactly have the same properties as existed in the original environment. However, you can update the properties on the original environment before you make a copy.
You can copy a virtual environment in either of two ways:
From a team project library share to a team project host group. In the user interface, this option is presented as creating a new environment from template.
From a team project host group to a team project library share. In the user interface, this option is presented as saving an environment to library.
In both ways, the original environment is left intact. Copying an environment within team project library shares, or copying an environment within team project host groups is not supported.
Copying is a quick way to create a new environment. It allows one person on the team to create a golden environment and store it in the team project library, and other people to create copies from that environment. This saves time for all the team members because they do not have to repeat the manual installation and configuration of the application in each environment. Copying environments also ensures consistency between environments. There will be no difference between the environment that a tester uses to test on and one that a developer uses to develop on, provided that the tests are copied from the same golden environment. When testers find bugs, copying that environment to the team project library is an effective way to store away the reproduction of that bug.
When you copy a stored environment to create an active environment, further operations on that stored environment are prevented (except another copy operation). Similarly, when you copy from an active environment to create a stored environment, further operations on that active environment are prevented.
In order for you to copy from a stored environment, that environment has to be in Stored state. To be able to copy from an active environment, that environment has to be in Stopped state. If the environments are in any other states (Mixed, UpdateFailed, and so on), you will not be able to create copies.
Creating copies of virtual machines results in network conflicts as multiple machines will have the same computer name. For information about how you can prevent these conflicts, see Environment Capabilities. Also, before you create copies of environments, make sure that you have the appropriate licensing rights on operating systems and application software to do such copying.
Just like creation of new environments from virtual machine templates, you can cancel a creation or copy in progress, or recover from failures, by retrying the operation. The time taken to create a copy depends on similar factors as the time taken to create a new environment from virtual machine templates.
For more information about the creation process, see How to: Create an Environment from Virtual Machine Templates.