Methods and apparatus to reduce application deployments sizes

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed, cause a machine to implement at least:

• a build generator to generate a build profile associated with a virtual appliance in a virtualization environment, the build profile including a plurality of application components including archive files associated with the virtual appliance, wherein the build profile occupies a first file size in memory;
• a duplicate identifier to determine when a first library and a second library included in the build profile are duplicate libraries, the first library associated with a first filename and a first data portion and the second library associated with a second filename and a second data portion;
• and
• a duplicate remover to, in response to a determination that the first library and the second library are duplicate libraries, replace the first filename with a hard link to the second data portion to update the build profile, wherein the duplicate remover removes the first library from the build profile while maintaining a folder structure of the virtual appliance, and the update to the build profile occupies a second file size in the memory that is smaller than the first file size.

A method comprising:

• generating, by executing an instruction with at least one processor, a build profile associated with a virtual appliance in a virtualization environment, the build profile including a plurality of application components including archive files associated with the virtual appliance, wherein the build profile occupies a first file size in memory;
• determining, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, when a first library and a second library included in the build profile are duplicate libraries, the first library associated with a first filename and a first data portion and the second library associated with a second filename and a second data portion;
• in response to determining that the first library and the second library are duplicate libraries, replacing, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, the first filename with a hard link to the second data portion to update the build profile;
• and
• removing, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, the first library from the build profile while maintaining a folder structure of the virtual appliance, wherein removing the first data portion causes the build profile to occupy a second file in the memory that is smaller than the first file size.