Templates
Templates help reduce the amount of time it takes to build a virtual desktop or server. Virtual Workload Templates are created in order to deploy similar configurations (i.e.: operating system and applications) to a group of users. Data is not duplicated as each child virtual workload points back to the same parent Template. In a traditional 10-user environment, there is easily 50 GB of operating system and application data per desktop. However, with SmartStyle, only 5 GB is required as each user’s virtual workload reads the same data from the operating system Template.
Clones
Clones are created from existing Virtual workloads or Templates. A virtual server can be cloned and moved to the maintenance environment. Once in maintenance, various tests, from operating system patches to new software installs, can be run on the cloned virtual server without affecting the production system.
Similarly, desktops can be cloned from a Template for each user in the department or company. When a machine is cloned, only the changes from the source machine are saved in the clone. This creates a tree structure and reduces the storage required for multiple virtual machines. Templates and clones are used to efficiently and effectively deploy virtual machines. Once a virtual disk is imported, commonly used operating system setups or applications can be configured. All clones created from a template rely on only one copy of the data. This efficient use of disk space provides a high level of data consolidation in the SmartStyle Environment. Clones can be used as templates to create other clones, further realizing the space savings of the consolidated data.