How to clone an Azure VM

Question

Is there a simple method of cloning an Azure VM? So far I have found that you can "Deprovision" a VM, run "Sysprep" on it, and then "capture" an image. More on that here. It requires you to shutdown the Virtual Machine.

What I had been hoping for was a simple "Clone VM" that doesn't require a machine shutdown or (if it does require a shutdown) will at least do it via an automated process, automatically bringing the VM back up as soon as the "capture" is complete. Is there a way to do this, preferably via the Azure management console?

Once you "capture" the vm, an image is created and the "captured" vm is deleted. But you can copy that image as many times as you like to create as many clones as you like. No automated way that i'm aware of however. — crthompson, Apr 24 '14 at 19:07
Use the following article to create a clone without stopping or deallocating the existing VM - https://www.techmanyu.com/how-to-quickly-clone-a-vm-in-azure/ — Abhimanyu Garg, Mar 28 '18 at 21:20

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 13 '21 at 19:39

You can automate the process of taking back up of VM on azure by use of Powershell. The following command can be used to perform this operation -

Start-CopyAzureStorageBlob -SrcContainer vhds -SrcBlob $blobName -DestContainer vhds -DestBlob $blobName -Context $sourceContext -DestContext $destContext -Force

The whole process is mentioned at the link - [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2014/01/29/from-the-mvps-copying-a-virtual-machine-from-one-windows-azure-subscription-to-another-with-powershell.aspx?Redirected=true][1]

How to clone an Azure VM

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