Merge pull request #300098 from SoniaLopezBravo/adding-cloning-feature-azoit

Adding cloning feature to az iot ops

Author: prmerger-automator[bot]

articles/iot-operations/deploy-iot-ops/howto-manage-update-uninstall.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ author: SoniaLopezBravo
 ms.author: sonialopez
 ms.topic: how-to
 ms.custom: devx-track-azurecli
-ms.date: 04/08/2025
+ms.date: 05/20/2025
 
 #CustomerIntent: As an OT professional, I want to manage Azure IoT Operations instances.
 ---
@@ -107,6 +107,50 @@ You can run `az iot ops check` on your cluster to assess health and configuratio
 
 ---
 
+### (Preview) Clone instance
+
+> [!NOTE]
+> The clone feature is in preview and under development.
+
+#### [Azure portal](#tab/portal)
+
+Currently, the Azure portal doesn't support cloning an Azure IoT Operations instance. You can use the Azure CLI to clone an instance.
+
+#### [Azure CLI](#tab/cli)
+
+Use the [`az iot ops clone`](/cli/azure/iot/ops#az-iot-ops-clone) command to create a new Azure IoT Operations instance based on an existing one. You can apply the output of clone to another connected cluster, which is referred to as replication. You can also save the clone to a local directory for later use and perform some configuration changes before applying it to a cluster. 
+
+For more information, see the [clone command wiki page](https://github.com/Azure/azure-iot-ops-cli-extension/wiki/Clone).
+
+To clone an instance to another cluster, run:
+
+```azurecli
+az iot ops clone --name <INSTANCE_NAME> --resource-group <RESOURCE_GROUP> --to-cluster-id <CLUSTER_ID> 
+```
+
+To customize the replication to another cluster, use `--param` and specify the parameters you want to change in the format `key=value`. For example, to change the location of the cloned instance, run:
+
+```azurecli
+az iot ops clone --name <INSTANCE_NAME> --resource-group <RESOURCE_GROUP> --to-cluster-id <CLUSTER_ID> --param location=eastus
+```
+
+To clone an instance to a local directory, run:
+
+```azurecli
+az iot ops clone --name <INSTANCE_NAME> --resource-group <RESOURCE_GROUP> --to-dir <DIRECTORY>
+```
+
+> [!TIP]
+> To clone an instance to the current directory, run `--to-dir .`
+
+To clone an instance to a cluster, but splitting and serially applying asset related sub-deployments, run:
+
+```azurecli
+az iot ops clone --name <INSTANCE_NAME> --resource-group <RESOURCE_GROUP> --to-cluster-id <CLUSTER_ID> --mode linked
+```
+
+---
+
 ### Update instances and configuration
 
 #### [Azure portal](#tab/portal2)
@@ -119,7 +163,7 @@ You can run `az iot ops check` on your cluster to assess health and configuratio
 
 #### [Azure CLI](#tab/cli2)
 
-Use the `az iot ops update` command to edit the features of your Azure IoT Operations instance.
+Use the [az iot ops update](/cli/azure/iot/ops#az-iot-ops-update) command to edit the features of your Azure IoT Operations instance.
 
 To update tags and description parameters of an instance, run: