If you want to test some functionality in the currently running VM without interruption, or you want to make a backup, you can think of cloning. This feature helps to create the golden image or base image as well.

To make a clone, right-click on the guest VM and click on Clone….

Once you click on Clone…, a screen appears, as shown in the following screenshot:

Provide the name of the clone. If you select Reinitialize the MAC address of all network cards, every network card attached to the clone VM (Destination VM) gets a new MAC address assigned. If you don't select it, the clone will have the same MAC address as the source VM. This will produce a MAC address collision in the network layer if you decide to use the source VM and cloned VM in the same network. However, its not an issue if you want your source VM and cloned VM in different networks. So, depending on the requirement either choose it or leave it as it is and click on Next.

Select the clone type. The difference is explained in the window itself. I have selected Full clone. Once you select the clone type, you need to decide what you need to clone, either the current state or all. If you select all, not only is the current state of the guest VM cloned but all the other snapshots are also cloned.

Bear in mind that the time taken to complete a clone operation depends on the size of the disk images attached to the guest VM.

Apart from creating the VM from scratch or cloning we can import VMs in Open Virtualization Format (OVF).