Backup / Clone Solaris Zone Issue

UNIX Solaris
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Hi, I'd like to discuss the subject of backing up / cloning Solaris zone.

I was trying to clone zone A to zone B (Solaris 10 11/06: Cloning a Non-Global Zone on the Same System (System Administration Guide: Oracle Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Oracle Solaris Zones)). The first test was failed, probably because A and B used the same dataset. The strange thing is that zone A became "incomplete" after the failed cloning. I have to reinstall it as a fresh installation. All data on the zone was lost. How could this happen? Clone is just like copy. If I copy file A to file B, file A won�t be corrupted even if the coping fails. How zone cloning is so risky? That�s my first question.

After I used a different name for the dataset to clone A to B, it succeeded. My second question: Can I use this way to backup a zone?

# cp �R /apool/zone1 /apool/zone2
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Whats the hardware u r using..Please paste the o/p of

uname -a

so that we can help u out..Cloning also depends on the hardware type..Like if u are doing it on a V440 m/c u wil face issues..as this m/c doesn't support cloning..If u r using mid range m/c's like e2900 or 4800 series..or a M4,M5,M9+ machine u wil be able to do it easily

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I've never been in a situation like this before . So I cannot answer. your 1st question accurately.
For backup I do know some few ways to backup non global zones here .
There are some other techniques in official documents if you want more
I never tried mere copying to backup non global zones . I recommend you try those procedures above

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Solaris 10/08 + Sun M5000

I did visit Zones Best Practices. Most of the backup methods there are for UFS. What is the best way of zone backup for ZFS (other than NetBackup)?

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ZFS snapshots

have a look regarding clonning here
As I said earlier digging in official documents might revel something , Some of those techniques are extracted from ZFS from Solaris documents
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Thank you for the info, but my original questions are not about how to clone zones - I did it successfully already.

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No one talks about zfs snapshot that is good for zones on zfs' backup and restore. Isn't it?

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It's hard to answer to your first question without knowing precisely what you did and on what Solaris release and update.

As for backups, cloning a zone might be overkill if the system decide not to use ZFS clones. This is an area where Solaris 10 and now 11 Express have quite evolved.