VM/File Copy inflating VMDKs

[pj888888888888]

I have this weird issue, I use Veeam to copy our VM templates from site to site, and everytime I do, the VMDKs get converted to Thick Eager, which has caused some grief being the VMs take longer to deploy, and hit the disk a tad bit harder than we'd like.
Has anyone else noticied this?
I'm trying to dig in and see whether its Veeam doing it, or if its potentially VMWare getting confused.
I only ask this because I'm trying to create an automated task doing the same thing, and its doing the same thing (Just a file copy this time, but its still happening)

Anyone see the same behavior?

[PTide]

Hi,

This is expected, please check this article:

With the VM copy job, all VM disks are copied as thick, while replication allows you to preserve the format of disks or convert the disk format on the fly.

Thanks

[pj888888888888]

Is it supposed to do that with a file copy though?
My issue is I'm trying to automate template changes from site to site and this is causing an extra step/manual process.

[PTide]

Yes, file copy will inflate the disk too. Maybe you could use OVF templates, they allow you to choose disk format when you deploy.

Thanks

[pj888888888888]

Yeah....this is just a base OS template, we are in the process of deploying an automated script build process that is triggered by our ticketing system.
Its part of our automate everything movement, and one of the pain points are templates getting from site to site.

I may have to look into some post copy scripting to vmotion these to thin provisioned after wards potentially.

[PTide]

I've come up with a workaround which might work for you, although it's not very elegant:

1. Create a separate folder (template_folder) for templates, and vm_folder for VMs

2. Create a PowerCLI script that deploys VMs from all newly discovered templates located in template_folder to vm_folder

3. Create replication job that replicates vm_folder to another site, and set the script as a pre-job script

4. Use post-job script to delete vms that have been already replicated

5. On the other site, perform reverse VM-to-template transformation

Thanks

[pj888888888888]

Yeah I mean right now, my plan was to conduct something along those lines.
Once the job completes, I'll have it convert said template to a VM, then convert the VMDK to thin and turn it back into a template.
Won't be fun at first....but it'll work, just going to take a little time to do.