Since its inception, a Machine Creation Services VM was based on thin cloning technology.  Each VM would read from the same copy of the master image while any writes would be directed to a VM-specific differencing disk. Because the differencing disk only contains writes, it is often thin provisioned to save on storage space.

This approach is perfect for pooled, non-persistent desktops.  But what about personal, persistent desktops?  With the XenApp and XenDesktop 7.11 release, Machine Creation Services now supports full cloned VMs.

Instead of each VM reading from the same copy of the master image, each VM receives a full clone of the master VM’s disk. All reads come from the VM’s cloned disk and all writes go to the same disk.

If you recall, I spent some time discussing the differences between Machine Creation Services and Provisioning Services in order to help administrators better determine when to use which image management solution.  In fact, this discussion was spread across 7 different blogs

• Point 1: Resource Delivery Options
• Point 2: Scalability
• Point 3: Storage Optimization
• Point 4: Deployment
• Point 5: On-going Maintenance
• Point 6: Architecture
• Point 7: Summary

With this new capability, I need to make one addition to the summary.  Machine Creation Services now supports full cloned VMs.

Daniel (Follow on Twitter @djfeller)
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