VMware Horizon Full Course – Episode 15: How to Create Horizon Instance Clone Desktop Pool?

An instant-clone desktop pool is an automated desktop pool created from a golden image using the vmFork technology (called instant clone API) in the vCenter Server.

In addition to using the instant clone API from the vCenter Server, Horizon 7 also creates several types of internal VMs (Internal Template, ReplicaVM, and ParentVM) to manage these clones in a more scalable way.

Instant clones share the virtual disk of the parent VM and consume less storage than full VMs. In addition, instant clones share the memory of the parent VM when they are first created, which contributes to fast provisioning. As users log into these cloned desktops, additional memory is consumed.

While the use of a parent VM is helpful in improving the provisioning speed, it does increase the memory requirement across the cluster. In some cases when the benefit of having more memory outweighs the increase in provisioning speed, Horizon 7 automatically chooses to provision instant clones directly from a replicaVM without creating any parentVM. This feature is called Smart Provisioning. A single instant clone pool can have instant clones that are created with or without parent VMs.