Consider a data center heavily built on Hyper-V (or VMware) and the ability to c

Question

Consider a data center heavily built on Hyper-V (or VMware) and the ability to clone virtual machines from template VMs or from other existing VMs. For a highly virtualized data center, how does this change the deployment options available from traditional data centers? Is there any benefit or need in using some of the traditional deployment options (e.g., disk imaging using software like Ghost, deploying operating systems using Windows Deployment Services and the Windows Automated Installation Kit or Microsoft Deployment Toolkit)?

Explanation / Answer

A clone is a copy of a virtual machine. A template is a master copy of a virtual machine that can be used to create many clones.

When you clone a virtual machine, you create a copy of the entire virtual machine, including its settings, any configured virtual devices, installed software, and other contents of the virtual machine's disks. You also have the option to use guest operating system customization to change some of the properties of the clone, such as the computer name and networking settings.

Cloning a virtual machine can save time if you are deploying many similar virtual machines. You can create, configure, and install software on a single virtual machine, and then clone it multiple times, rather than creating and configuring each virtual machine individually.

If you create a virtual machine that you want to clone frequently, make that virtual machine a template. A template is a master copy of a virtual machine that can be used to create and provision virtual machines. Templates cannot be powered on or edited, and are more difficult to alter than ordinary virtual machine. A template offers a more secure way of preserving a virtual machine configuration that you want to deploy many times.

When you clone a virtual machine or deploy a virtual machine from a template, the resulting cloned virtual machine is independent of the original virtual machine or template. Changes to the original virtual machine or template are not reflected in the cloned virtual machine, and changes to the cloned virtual machine are not reflected in the original virtual machine or template..

Installing a guest operating system and applications can be time consuming .With clones you can make many copies of virtual machines  from a single installation and configuairation process.Clones are useful when you must deploy many identical virtual machines to a group.

With clones you can conveniently make complete copies of a virtual machine, without browsing a host file system or worrying if you have located all the configuration files.

Yes there is some benefits in using traditional deployement options.

Traditional disk-based storage is optimized for high-capacity, modest performance, and read-heavy

workloads

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse C
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.