Cloning or deploying from a template takes longer time after upgrading to VMware vSphere 5.1 Update 2 and 5.5

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Cloning and/or deploying from a template takes significantly longer time.
• All the cloning and/or deploying from a template tasks occur on the ESXi host where the source virtual machine or template is registered after upgrading vSphere 5.1 Update 2 or 5.5.
• Cloning and/or deploying from a template transfers data through the network, even though the selected destination ESXi host has access to both source and destination data stores.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x

Cause

This issue occurs because:

• There are changes to the way virtual machine files are copied when cloning or deploying from a template in vSphere 5.1 Update 2 and 5.5.
• During cloning or deploying a virtual machine from one ESXi host to another, the transfer process no longer considers the destination's storage configuration when making decisions about which ESXi host will run the file copy.
• The file copy process will use the source ESXi host to transfer the data, regardless of whether the storage is considered local to the destination ESXi host.
• The source ESXi host performs a file copy across the network, as opposed to using local copy methods, causing possible performance decreases that were not seen in previous vSphere versions.
  
  Use this example configuration:
  
  
  

• Cloning a virtual machine from ESXi Host A to ESXi Host B, from a Shared Storage to Local Storage, will use ESXi Host A to copy the virtual machine data over the network from Shared Storage to Local Storage on ESXi Host B.
• In previous vSphere versions this data would have been copied by ESXi Host B locally from Shared Storage to Local Storage.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in:

• vCenter Server 5.1 Update 3, available at VMware Downloads. For more information, see VMware vCenter Server 5.1 Update 3 Release Notes.
• vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2d, available at VMware Downloads. For more information, see vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2d Release Notes.

After applying the update, apply the Advanced setting using one these methods for version 5.1:

In VMware Infrastructure Client (VI Client),

1. Navigate to Administration > vCenter Server settings > Advanced Settings.
2. Click Edit.
3. Set Key to nfc.copyFromDestination.
4. Set Value to true.
5. Click Add.
6. Click OK.

In vSphere Client and vSphere Web Client,

1. Navigate to vCenter Server >Manage > Advanced Settings.
2. Click Edit.
3. Set Key to nfc.copyFromDestination.
4. Set Value to true.
5. Click Add.
6. Click OK.

The data copied by ESXi Host B locally is from Shared Storage to Local Storage when this parameter is set to true. If the parameter is set to false the ESXi Host considers source host to initiate copy.

Additional Information

For more information, see Poor performance while deploying virtual machines over the network (2052302).

Note: VAAI does not work at the virtual machine deploy / clone operation over the network.

Poor performance while deploying virtual machines over the network
VMware vSphere 5.1 Update 2 および 5.5 にアップグレードするとテンプレートからのクローン作成やデプロイに時間がかかる
升级到 VMware vSphere 5.1 Update 2 和 5.5 之后，从模板执行克隆或部署所用的时间变长