Cloning is an art!
Duplicating your VM is an excellent way to fast-track your project without human error. There are some reasons you may want to clone your VM for a quick application setup.
Update: Google has made it a lot easier now to clone the VM.
Create Similar Approach
- Login to GCP and go to VM instances under Compute Engine.
- Click on the respective VM to be cloned.
- On top, you will see a create a similar button.
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- Adjust the necessary (name, machine type, etc.) according to the requirement
- Click on create
Much easy!
The following I wrote when the “CREATE SIMILAR” button didn’t exist.
Snapshot Approach
Lately, I set up my tools website on one Google Cloud VM and had to set up another one for high availability, and cloning was a life-saver.
Not only was it faster, but also I didn’t have to go through all the configurations, and installation manually, which has excellent room for missing/human error.
You may want to consider cloning VM if:
- You want to save time.
- You should set up a replica for another reason.
- Have to set up multiple instances for high-availability
- Want to avoid manual work/human error
If you are in a situation to duplicate the Google Cloud Virtual Machine, then here is how you can do it.
This is two steps process. First, where you create a snapshot, and next, you use that snapshot to create a VM instance.
You can do this while VM is running. This will ensure you don’t have any downtime and have the same replica of the existing VM.
- Go to VM instances under Computer Engine
- Click on Snapshots at the left navigation
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- Click Create Snapshot
- Enter the name and select the source disk of the VM, which you want to get it cloned.
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It will take a few seconds (based on the disk size), and you will get a confirmation on completion. You can see the newly created snapshot in the list.
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Now, it’s time to create an instance from the snapshot.
- Go inside the snapshot from the list and click “Create Instance.”
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- Enter the new instance details
Note: Google will not show you the existing VM instance configuration like CPU/Memory, so you got to ensure they are at your needs level.
You may also need to select firewall configuration as if you want to allow HTTP or HTTPS traffic.
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- Click create once you have changed the configuration settings.
It will take a few seconds based on the disk size, and once done, and you will see the newly created VM in the list.
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To confirm the VM is cloned with the data, log into newly created VM, and verify.
I found this is the quickest way to ensure VM on Google Cloud Platform is duplicated.
If you are interested in learning GCP, then I would recommend taking this Architecting with Google Cloud course.