3.1

Table Of Contents
View Manager Administration Guide
116 VMware, Inc.
Thelinkisindirectbecausethefirsttimeoneormorelinkedclonesarecreated,a
uniquelyidentifiedcopyoftheParentVM—calledareplica—isalsocreated.Allthe
desktopclonesareanchoreddirectlytothereplicaandnottotheParentVM.Desktops
ofthistypearecalledlinkedclone
desktops.
TheParentVMcanbeupdatedorreplacedwithoutdirectlyaffectingthelinkedclone
desktopsandcanthereforecanbeviewedasastandalonevirtualmachine.Thissetof
relationshipsisillustratedinFigure 61.
Figure 6-1. Parent VM, Linked Replica, and Desktop Clones
Becauseallthelinkedclonedesktopsinthisenvironmentareconnectedtoacommon
source,ViewComposerpermitsthecentralizedmanagementofdesktopswhile
maintainingaseamlessuserexperience.Taskssuchasresettingeachsystemtoits
defaultconfiguration,balancingstorage,installingsoftware,andapplyingservice
packsaregreatlyacceleratedbythistypeofdeployment.
N
OTEReplicaVMscanbeidentifiedwithinVirtualCenterbytheirreplica-prefix
followedbyauniqueID.
N
OTEIfareplicaisdeleted,thedesktopsanchoredtothereplicawillceasetowork,so
replicasaretreatedasprotectedentitieswithinVirtualCenter.
base image + snapshot
user data disk
replica
OS data disk
user data disk
OS data disk
parent VM can be
on a different datastore
clone 1 clone 2