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CHAPTER 2 Discovering Virtual Desktop Infrastructure 27 These materials are © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Choosing the Right Virtual Desktop Instance Type Once you've deployed the underlying hardware and the overarch- ing VDI software, it's time to start creating virtual desktops! You have several options. Individually provisioned Just like deploying individual physical desktops, you can individ- ually deploy virtual desktops. This approach is feasible only for small deployments or in deployments where every virtual desktop will be unique. Full clones The more common way that virtual desktops are deployed is by cloning an existing virtual desktop that is created as a master image or parent virtual machine. The first cloning method is a full clone. Under this instance type, when you clone the master image, an exact replica of that image is created, completely detached from the master image. The cloned desktop stands fully separate. It's a way to get a copy of your master image up and running, though each one may take a few minutes to create. Linked or fast clones The next cloning method is called either linked cloning (VMware) or fast cloning (Citrix). These types of clones share virtual disks with the parent, with the result being much less need for disk capacity. After all, the entire operating system in a virtual desktop is replicated, so with linked clones, you get to jettison that capac- ity overhead and just use the parent VM's virtual disks. Because there's no need to replicate all of the storage contents, linked clones are created quickly. One downside of a linked/fast clone is a bit of a performance dip because all child VMs share the disks of the parent. Further, if the parent virtual machine becomes unavailable for some reason, none of the linked virtual machines can operate.