Cloning a running VCenter

Good Day,

I am using Vsphere 6.5upd1  and the same version on a Vcenter appliance.    Is it OK to make a clone of the Vcenter server itself while it is running?   I am doing this for backup purposes only.   We are a small shop only 4 hosts and not running HA so things would be kind of quiet when I do this.  But  I do have concerns if the backup clone would work correctly if I ever needed it.

I have used the backup routine inside the appliance itself and that works fine.   But if cloning it while running is OK it would make things easier.

Thank you,

HRM