Owing to how linked and Instant Clone desktops work, it is important to remember that they should not be managed using the same techniques as a typical virtual machine. Some examples of this include the following:
- If you were to apply software patches to linked clones individually, rather than using a recompose operation, the linked clone virtual hard disks would grow significantly over time. This defeats the storage efficiency that is one of the primary reasons for choosing linked clones. Additionally, deploying patches to Instant Clone desktops would be pointless, as any changes are erased when the user logs off.
- Recompose, refresh, and rebalance operations all change the state of the linked clone virtual desktop, which can affect utilities such as indexing programs. If these operations lead to resource-intensive operations...