we want to set up 2 VMs (01 & 02) as primary license managers (L/M) and then clone them for local office WAN failure backup purposes. All clients across the network would point to the primary 01 & 02 L/M's and then in the event of a WAN failure, we would fire up the local "offline" clones with the same names as the primaries which would allow for local clients to continue working and then shut down the clones when the WAN connection was restore.
The clones have to be the same name and MAC address as the primaries for the license files to work.
Would there be a problem with the clones having the same name as the physical machine even though the actual machine cannot be reached because the WAN went down?
If they're exact clones of same machine (that is, having exactly the same SID - obviously the ones in the branch office will have different IPs set after they're cloned) and they are members of a Windows domain you will need to disable the automatic rotation of the workstation trust password. Everything ought to be fine, so long as you only have one online at once.
You can disable that setting in the local policy on the machines under "Computer Settings", "Windows Settings", "Security Settings", "Local Policies", "Security Options", and the entry "Domain member: Disable machine account password changes".
Once that's done your standby machine will remain "fresh" and will still have a valid workstation trust relationship to the domain when you bring it up.