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Table Of Contents
Lab Manager User’s Guide
98 VMware, Inc.
Understanding Virtual Machine Datastore Directories
WhenyoumovethepointeroveradatastorenameandselectContext,Lab Managerdisplaysahighlevel,tree
diagramofthevirtualmachine’srelationshiptovirtualmachinesonwhichitdepends(ancestornodes)and
thatdependonit(childnodes).Eachnodeinthetreerepresentsadirectorylocationon
thedatastore.Your
configurationfilesmustliveonthesamedatastoreasthebase.Forexample,ifyouhaveVM1onDataStoreX,
alltheconfigurationsyoucreatefromVM1mustliveonDataStoreX.Youcancopythisvirtualmachineasthe
basetemplatetootherdatastores.
Lab Managercreatesnodesforoperations
suchaslinkedcloning.Whenyoucreatealinkedcloneofavirtual
machine,Lab Managercreatesadeltadisk,ratherthancopyingtheentirevirtualharddisk.Witheachlinked
cloneoperation,Lab Managerfreezestheoriginaldeltadiskandcreatesanewone.Thevirtualmachinedisk
consistsofitsown
deltadiskandthedeltadisksofancestordisks.Thisseriesofdisksrepresentsthechain
lengthofavirtualmachine.
Deletingavirtualmachinedeletesthestorageoccupiedbythevirtualmachinenodeandancestornodesthat
canbesafelydeleted.
Lab Managerdoesnotdeleteanancestornodein
thefollowingsituations:
Theancestordirectoryhasotherchilddirectoriesthatdependonit.
Avirtualmachine(forexample,avirtualmachinetemplateorvirtualmachineintheconfiguration
library)isassociatedwiththeancestornode.
Anothernodeisusingtheancestornodeasarevertpoint.
Forexample,afullcloneoperationmightconsolidateandcreateanewdiskbutrefertotherevertpoint
oftheoriginalchain.
Figure 91showsabasicexampleofatreeofrelatedvirtualmachinesandtheinternalnodes
affectedbya
deleteoperation.
Figure 9-1. Example of Nodes Affected by a Delete Operation
IfyoudeletenodeD,nodeBstaysintactbecausenodeCandEdependonit.IfyoudeletenodeE,thespace
fornodeEandnodeCbecomesavailablebecausethedeletionaffectsallnodesuptoadirectorywithchild
dependencies
(nodeB).
Ifyoumovethepointeroverabox,details,suchastheownersname,theconfigurationinwhichthisvirtual
machineislocated,chainlength,andtheamountofspacethevirtualmachineorinternalnodeconsumes,are
displayed.Previouslydeployedandcurrentlydeployedvirtualmachinesdisplayinformationabout
when
theywerepreviouslydeployed.Internalnodesdonotdisplaythisinformation.
Aturquoiseboxindicatesarevertreference,whichmeansthatanotherdirectory(createdbyafullclone
operationonadifferentdatastore)existsoutsidethedisplayeddirectorytreebutusesadirectorylinkedtothis
revertreferenceasa
revertpoint.Todeleteadirectorylinkedtoarevertreference,youneedtodeletethe
virtualmachineassociatedwiththerevertreferenceandthedescendantsofthedirectory.
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