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Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 101
Chapter 6 View Composer
Ahighlevelofstorageovercommitintroducesthepossibilityofvirtualmachines
growingtosuchalev elthatallfreespacewithinthedatastoreisconsumed.Whenthe
volumeofspacebeingusedbythevirtualmachinesonthedatastorereaches:
95%—Alogentryisgeneratedthatstatesthedatastoreisshortonfreespace.
99%—Everyvirtualmachineresidentwithinthedatastoreissuspended.
Therebalancefeatureoffersadministratorsagracefulmechanismforintroducing
additionalstoragetoadatastoreinordertopreventthelatteroutcome.Inaddition,
priortoexecutingtherebalanceactionyoumayalsoretireoldstorageandmake
resourcepoolalterations,andhostchang
es.
OnlydesktopsintheReady,Error,orCustomizingstatewithnoschedulesorpending
cancellationscanberebalanced.Inaddition,youcannotrebalancetheloadbetweenthe
localstoragesystemsonmultiplestandaloneESXservers.
Itisrecommendedtokeeplinkedclonedesktopvirtualmachinesonadatastorewith
noot
hertypeofvirtualmachinesothattherebalanceactionisappliedtoallthevirtual
machines.
Persistent and Non-Persistent Desktops
BothpersistentandnonpersistentdesktopconfigurationsaresupportedbyView
Composer.Inpersistentconfigurations,dedicateddisks—asystemdiskforoperating
systemdataandauserdiskforuserdata—canbeusedtokeeptheoperatingsystem
anduserdataseparate.Thisensuresthateveniftheoperatingsystemisrecomposedor
refreshedtheus
erdataremainsunaffected.
Innonpersistentconfigurationstheuserdataistransientsoboththeoperatingsystem
dataandtheuserdataisstoredonthesystemdisk.Inthisconfigurationuserdataisnot
protectedifthesystemisrecomposedorrefreshed.
N
OTEInordertorebalancethedesktopsitisnecessaryforViewManagerto
automaticallyrefreshtheiroperatingsystemsagainsttheircurrentbaseimageand
returnthesystemdatatoitsbaselinestate—userdataisunaffectedifitresidesona
separateuserdatadisk.
NOTEPersistentdesktopscanbesettorefreshautomaticallywhentheuserlogsoff.
Thiscanhelpminimizethespacerequirementsofthepool.Similarly,nonpersistent
poolscanbesettodeleteafterfirstuse,whichreducesthenumberofinactivedesktops
inthepooloverall.