VMware VC-VLM4-C User Guide - Page 98

Lab Manager User's Guide Understanding Virtual Machine Datastore Directories When you move the pointer over a datastore name and select Context, Lab Manager displays a high‐level, tree diagram of the virtual machine's relationship to virtual machines on which it depends (ancestor nodes) and that depend on it (child nodes). Each node in the tree represents a directory location on the datastore. Your configuration files must live on the same datastore as the base. For example, if you have VM1 on DataStoreX, all the configurations you create from VM1 must live on DataStoreX. You can copy this virtual machine as the base template to other datastores. NOTE If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, you can only view context diagrams using the Compatibility View. To access this view, in Internet Explorer, select Tools > Compatibility View. Lab Manager creates nodes for operations such as linked cloning. When you create a linked clone of a virtual machine, Lab Manager creates a delta disk, rather than copying the entire virtual hard disk. With each linked clone operation, Lab Manager freezes the original delta disk and creates a new one. The virtual machine disk consists of its own delta disk and the delta disks of ancestor disks. This series of disks represents the chain length of a virtual machine. Deleting a virtual machine deletes the storage occupied by the virtual machine node and ancestor nodes that can be safely deleted. Lab Manager does not delete an ancestor node in the following situations:  The ancestor directory has other child directories that depend on it.  A virtual machine (for example, a virtual machine template or virtual machine in the configuration library) is associated with the ancestor node.  Another node is using the ancestor node as a revert point. For example, a full clone operation might consolidate and create a new disk but refer to the revert point of the original chain. Figure 9‐1 shows a basic example of a tree of related virtual machines and the internal nodes affected by a delete operation. Figure 9-1. Example of Nodes Affected by a Delete Operation E C A B D If you delete node D, node B stays intact because node C and E depend on it. If you delete node E, the space for node E and node C becomes available because the deletion affects all nodes up to a directory with child dependencies (node B). If you move the pointer over a box, details, such as the owner's name, the configuration in which this virtual machine is located, chain length, and the amount of space the virtual machine or internal node consumes, are displayed. Previously deployed and currently deployed virtual machines display information about when they were previously deployed. Internal nodes do not display this information. A turquoise box indicates a revert reference, which means that another directory (created by a full clone operation on a different datastore) exists outside the displayed directory tree but uses a directory linked to this revert reference as a revert point. To delete a directory linked to a revert reference, you need to delete the virtual machine associated with the revert reference and the descendants of the directory. 98 VMware, Inc.