Re: [PLUG] epiphany or stupidity?

Yes, it's been in use for years.

In addition to Dedup already mentioned, VMware desktop uses "linked clones" where

one master desktop image is used for perhaps 100 desktops, and only the individual

user data and changes are maintained separately for each user.

So, when you update/patch the master image, there is a short 'recompose' process required, but

then all 100 desktops have the latest image.

As you can imagine, the single image fits better into SSD storage/cache than 100 images.

Lee

From: "Tone Montone" <tonemontone@gmail.com>
To: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2016 11:56:04 AM
Subject: [PLUG] epiphany or stupidity?

I was running last night, and for some reason, I had an idea about backups. It occurred to me that if I had 100 Red Hat systems, all running the same OS and Patch level, would I need full backups on all the systems. Wouldn't there be static information like executables that would be the same across all systems? So instead of doing fulls x 100, I could do a full x 1, then just differentials or incrementals on the others, thereby reducing total storage required on tapes.
Then I thought if I took the same idea and applied it to the SAN storage, could I have fixed images that the systems run on, and only require 1 instance of it, thereby reducing total storage space requirements.

Then I thought, either this is a really stupid idea, or it's brilliant and most likely already done.

Comments?

Thanks,

Mike

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Lee Marzke, lee@marzke.net     http://marzke.net/lee/
IT Consultant, VMware, VCenter, SAN storage, infrastructure, SW CM
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